George Bancroft Quotes

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are blindly adopted; the second wilfully preferred.

It [Calvinism] established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.

By common consent, gray hairs are a crown of glory: the only object of respect that can never excite envy.

Sedition is bred in the lap of luxury and its chosen emissaries are the beggared spendthrift and the impoverished libertine.

Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement; and if a story is told of more than common interest, ennui is sure to have its joy in adding embellishments. If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal?

Beauty is but the sensible image of the infinite. Like truth and justice, it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law, it is a companion of the soul.

If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal?

In 1688 England contracted to the Netherlands the highest debt that one nation can owe to another. Herself not knowing how to recover her liberties, they were restored by men of the United Provinces.

The measure of progress of civilization is the progress of the people.

Avarice is the vice of declining years.

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement.

In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person.

The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.

Not in vain has Lincoln lived, for he has helped to make this republic an example of justice, with no caste but the caste of humanity.

The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.

I find the name of Jesus Christ written on the top of every page of modern history.

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.

Institutions may crumble and governments fall, but it is only that they may renew a better youth, and mount upwards like the eagle.

The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break.

Libraries collect the works of genius of every language and every age.

Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.

Ennui is the desire of activity without the fit means of gratifying the desire.

If reason is a universal faculty, the decision of the common mind is the nearest criterion of truth.

Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.

The charities of life are scattered everywhere, enameling the vales of human beings as the flowers paint the meadows. They are not the fruit of study, nor the privilege of refinement, but a natural instinct.