19th-century Diplomat Quotes

Pope John XXIII

Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius IX

Pope Leo XIII

Gabriela Mistral

Paul Claudel

James Russell Lowell

There was no indication of panic. The broken files marched back in steady step. The effort was nobly made and failed from the blows that could not be fended.

James Longstreet

Let your motto be RESISTANCE! RESISTANCE! RESISTANCE! No oppressed people have ever secured their Liberty without resistance. What kind of resistance you had better make, you must decide by the circumstances that surround you, and according to the suggestion of expediency.

Henry Highland Garnet

A great factory with the machinery all working and revolving with absolute and rhythmic regularity and with the men all driven by one impulse, and moving in unison as though a constituent part of the mighty machine, is one of the most inspiring examples of directed force that the world knows. I have rarely seen the face of a mechanic in the action of creation which was not fine, never one which was not earnest and impressive.

Thomas Nelson Page

In a general sense, this doctrine [conservation of energy] is coeval with the dawn of human intelligence. It is nothing more than an application of the simple principle that nothing can come from or to nothing...

Dullness is the only crime for which an editor ought to be hung.

Josephus Daniels

The soul of our service is the loyalty with which we execute ordained error.

Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart

The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.

Ludendorff: The English soldiers fight like lions.
Hoffman: True. But don't we know that they are lions led by donkeys.

No system of education is complete that does not harden the hands and toughen muscles, while it is also develops the intellect and enlarges the heart...only through work do we attain the true symmetry, strength, and glory of godly manhood and womanhood.

Alexander Clark

A mugwump is a person educated beyond his intellect.

Oratory is just like prostitution: you must have little tricks.

Vittorio Emanuele Orlando

Now I am nothing but a veil; all my body is a veil beneath which a child sleeps.

Gabriela Mistral

Moral stimulation is good but moral complacency is the most dangerous habit of mind we can develop, and that danger is serious and ever-present.

We have shown that socialism is an incoherent combination of thesis and antithesis, which contradict and destroy one another. Catholicism, on the contrary forms a great synthesis which includes all things in its unity, and infuses them in its sovereign harmony. It may be affirmed of Catholic dogmas, that, although they are diverse, they are one. Only an abolute negation can be opposed to this wonderful synthesis. The Catholic word is then invincible and eternal. Nothing can diminish its sovereign viture.

Juan Donoso Cortés

At the time this hazardous prophecy was made, the huge overgrown Roman Empire was tottering to its fall. Does a similar fate await the British Empire?

Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer

In the little moment that remains to us between the crisis and the catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of champagne.

The sentimentalist does not think of what he does so much as of what the world will think of what he does.

James Russell Lowell

I vow to thee, my country—all earthly things above—
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love,
The love that asks no question: the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best:
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

Cecil Spring-Rice

The art of injudicious reading, the art of miscellaneous reading which every normal man ought to cultivate, is a very fine and satisfactory art; for the best guide to books is a book itself. It clasps hands with a thousand other books.

Maurice Francis Egan

I would stand with God against man, rather than with man against God.

Aristides de Sousa Mendes

The imagination of these conquered peoples was dazzled by the introduction of Greek art, literature, philosophy, and public works. Though the successors of Alexander were unable to maintain the political control of the lands he conquered, and though successive waves of Roman, Arabian, and Tartar conquests swept over these lands in succeeding centuries, none of the later conquerors has been able wholly to eradicate the influence of Greek culture, nor to exterminate that element of population which was of Greek blood.

Henry Morgenthau, Sr.

No one is so rich that he does not need another's help; no one so poor as not to be useful in some way to his fellow man; and the disposition to ask assistance from others with confidence and to grant it with kindness is part of our very nature.

If added power attends the united prayer of two or three, what mighty triumphs there will be when hundreds of thousands of consistent members of the Church are with one accord day by day making intercession for the extension of Christ's Kingdom.

The more true science advances, the more it discovers God, almost, as though he were standing, vigilant behind every door which science opens.

Now, I am not caring today, for myself, anything at all about a political party tag. So far as I am concerned, I want to know what the man stands for....When I find out these things, then I know who it is who should receive my support, and I care not what his party tag is....Today, our duty transcends party allegiance; our duty today is allegiance to the Constitution as it was given to us by the Lord.

J. Reuben Clark