John Lothrop Motley Quotes

#1. With the Germans, the sovereignty resided in the great assembly of the people.

John Lothrop Motley

#2. The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak and timid persons into servitude.

John Lothrop Motley

#3. The rise of the Dutch Republic must ever be regarded as one of the leading events of modern times.

John Lothrop Motley

#4. Monuments! what are they? the very pyramids have forgotten their builders, or to whom they were dedicated. Deeds, not stones, are the true monuments of the great.

John Lothrop Motley

#5. Local self-government ... is the life-blood of liberty.

John Lothrop Motley

#6. The whole territory of the Netherlands was girt with forests.

John Lothrop Motley

#7. Thus the whole country was broken into many shreds and patches of sovereignty.

John Lothrop Motley

#8. The sword - the first, for a time the only force: the force of iron.

John Lothrop Motley

#9. 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.

John Lothrop Motley

#10. A new civilization was not to be improvised by a single mind.

John Lothrop Motley

#11. You will find most books worth reading are worth reading twice.

John Lothrop Motley

#12. The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.

John Lothrop Motley

#13. To the Calvinists, more than to any other class of men, the political liberties of Holland, England, and America are due.

John Lothrop Motley

#14. In the tenth century the old Batavian and later Roman forms have faded away.

John Lothrop Motley

#15. History shows how feeble are barriers of paper.

John Lothrop Motley

#16. Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.

John Lothrop Motley

#17. The gigantic Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies.

John Lothrop Motley

#18. In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves.

John Lothrop Motley

#19. Enthusiasm could not supply the place of experience.

John Lothrop Motley

#20. For a century longer, Rome still retains its outward form, but the swarming nations are now in full career.

John Lothrop Motley

#21. When did one man ever civilize a people?

John Lothrop Motley

#22. Thus the liberties of Holland and Flanders waxed, daily, stronger.

John Lothrop Motley

#23. A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman.

John Lothrop Motley

#24. A third force, developing itself more slowly, becomes even more potent than the rest: the power of gold.

John Lothrop Motley

#25. A talent for repartee is one that increases with practice.

John Lothrop Motley

#26. A good lawyer is a bad Christian.

John Lothrop Motley

#27. The history of the Franks becomes, therefore, the history of the Netherlands.

John Lothrop Motley

#28. The crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs.

John Lothrop Motley

#29. Literature, the most seductive, the most deceiving, the most dangerous of professions.

John Lothrop Motley

#30. A soil, exhausted by the long culture of Pagan empires, was to lie fallow for a still longer period.

John Lothrop Motley