1.
The history of the Franks becomes, therefore, the history of the Netherlands.
John Lothrop Motley
2.
A third force, developing itself more slowly, becomes even more potent than the rest: the power of gold.
John Lothrop Motley
3.
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
4.
In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves.
John Lothrop Motley
5.
The crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs.
John Lothrop Motley
6.
A soil, exhausted by the long culture of Pagan empires, was to lie fallow for a still longer period.
John Lothrop Motley
7.
Thus the whole country was broken into many shreds and patches of sovereignty.
John Lothrop Motley
8.
To the Calvinists, more than to any other class of men, the political liberties of Holland, England, and America are due.
John Lothrop Motley
9.
Enthusiasm could not supply the place of experience.
John Lothrop Motley
10.
Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessities.
John Lothrop Motley
11.
A good lawyer is a bad Christian.
John Lothrop Motley
12.
When did one man ever civilize a people?
John Lothrop Motley
13.
A new civilization was not to be improvised by a single mind.
John Lothrop Motley
14.
The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak and timid persons into servitude.
John Lothrop Motley
15.
A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman.
John Lothrop Motley
16.
The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.
John Lothrop Motley
17.
Wealth brings strength, strength confidence.
John Lothrop Motley
18.
In the tenth century the old Batavian and later Roman forms have faded away.
John Lothrop Motley
19.
History shows how feeble are barriers of paper.
John Lothrop Motley
20.
Local self-government…is the life-blood of liberty.
John Lothrop Motley
21.
A talent for repartee is one that increases with practice.
John Lothrop Motley
22.
The finger of the atheists' own divinity, Reason, wrote on the wall the appalling judgments that there is no God; that the universe is only matter in spontaneous motion; and, most grievous word of all, that what men call their souls die with the death of the body, as music dies when the strings are broken.
John Lothrop Motley
23.
For a century longer, Rome still retains its outward form, but the swarming nations are now in full career.
John Lothrop Motley
