John Lothrop Motley Quotes
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As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the street.
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Local self-government…is the life-blood of liberty.
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Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.
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Wealth brings strength, strength confidence.
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When did one man ever civilize a people?
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The sword - the first, for a time the only force: the force of iron.
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The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.
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Thus the liberties of Holland and Flanders waxed, daily, stronger.
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The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak and timid persons into servitude.
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A good lawyer is a bad Christian.
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Thus again the Netherlands, for the first time since the fall of Rome, were united under one crown imperial. They had already been once united, in their slavery to Rome.
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A new civilization was not to be improvised by a single mind.
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In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves.
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With the Germans, the sovereignty resided in the great assembly of the people.
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Enthusiasm could not supply the place of experience.
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The history of the Franks becomes, therefore, the history of the Netherlands.
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Thus the whole country was broken into many shreds and patches of sovereignty.
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In the tenth century the old Batavian and later Roman forms have faded away.
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A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman.
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For a century longer, Rome still retains its outward form, but the swarming nations are now in full career.
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The gigantic Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies.
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The crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs.
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A soil, exhausted by the long culture of Pagan empires, was to lie fallow for a still longer period.
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A third force, developing itself more slowly, becomes even more potent than the rest: the power of gold.