|
|
He was utterly without ambition [Chas. II.]. He detested
business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have
undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.
Topic: Ambition
Source: History of England (Character of Charles II) (vol. I, ch. II)
|
How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.
Topic: Bravery
Source: Lays of Ancient Rome--Horatius (70)
|
In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities
of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey, which has
during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose
minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the
Great Hall.
Topic: Churches
Source: Warren Hastings
|
A beggarly people,
A church and no steeple.
Topic: Churches
Source: Warren Hastings
|
Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a
sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the
moment both themselves and their auditors.
Topic: Conversation
Source: Essay--On the Athenian Orators
|
The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the
bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.
Topic: Cruelty
Source: History of England (vol. I, ch. II)
|
Thus our democracy was from an early period the most
aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.
Topic: Democracy
Source: History (vol. I, p. 20)
|
Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons.
Topic: Eating
Source: Political Georgics
|
It is good to be often reminded of the inconsistency of human
nature, and to learn to look without wonder or disgust on the
weaknesses which are found in the strongest minds.
Topic: Humanity
Source: Warren Hastings
|
His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled
him to run, though not to soar.
Topic: Imagination
Source: On John Dryden
|
The human race is governed by its imagination.
[Fr., C'est l'imagination qui gouverne le genre humain.]
Topic: Imagination
Source: On John Dryden
|
. . . A man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters
amongst men of the world.
Topic: Literature
Source: On Sir William Temple
|
We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one
of its periodical fits of morality.
Topic: Morality
Source: On Moore's Life of Lord Byron
|
There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles
the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen
were not seamen.
Topic: Navy
Source: History of England (vol. I, ch. III, pt. XXXII)
|
The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.
Topic: Oratory
Source: Essay on Athenian Orators
|
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?
Topic: Patriotism
Source: Horatius keeps the Bridge
|
The sweeter sound of woman's praise.
Topic: Praise
Source: Lines Written on the Night of 30th of July, 1847
|
Everybody's business is nobody's business.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essay on Hallam's Constit. History
|
The English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public
good.
Topic: Public Trust
Source: Essay on Horace Walpole
|
She [the Roman Catholic Church] may still exist in undiminished
vigour, when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst
of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London
Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.
Topic: Ruin
Source: Ranke's History of the Popes
|
"Sidney Godophin," said Charles (II), "is never in the way and
never out of the way."
Topic: Service
Source: History of England (vol. I, p. 265, Cabinet Ed.)
|
A system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your
neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife.
Topic: Society
Source: Essays--Moore's Life of Lord Byron
|
Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.
Topic: Sound
Source: Enigma (last line), "Cut off my head, etc."
|
The impenetrable stupidity of Prince George (son-in-law of James
II) served his turn. It was his habit, when any news was told
him, to exclaim, "Est il possible?"--"Is it possible?"
Topic: Stupidity
Source: History of England (vol. I, ch. IX)
|
I don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster
than you think.
Topic: Stupidity
Source: History of England (vol. I, ch. IX)
|
Then none was for a party;
Than all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great:
Then lands were fairly portioned;
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
Topic: Unity
Source: Lays of Ancient Rome--Horatius (st. 32)
|
