George Bancroft Quotes

33 Sourced Quotes

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?

George Bancroft
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.

George Bancroft
The movement of the species is upward, irresistibly upward.

George Bancroft
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.

George Bancroft
It is when the hour of the conflict is over that history comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim, "Lo, God is here, and we knew Him not!"

George Bancroft
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.

George Bancroft
Each generation gathers together the imperishable children of the past, and increases them by new sons of light, alike radiant with immortality.

George Bancroft
The feud between the capitalist and laborer, the house of Have and the house of Want, is as old as social union, and can never be entirely quieted; but he who will act with moderation, prefer fact to theory, and remember that everything in this world is relative and not absolute, will see that the violence of the contest may be stilled.

George Bancroft
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.

George Bancroft
By common consent grey hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy.

George Bancroft
Ambition itself is not so reckless of human life as ennui; clemency is a favorite attribute of the former; but ennui has the taste of a cannibal.

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

George Bancroft
It is a pretty general rule that the médisante is a termagant in her household; and as for our own sex, in nine cases out of ten, the evil tongue belongs to a disappointed man.

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

George Bancroft
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.

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

George Bancroft
Our land is not more the recipient of the men of all countries than of their ideas.

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

George Bancroft
Beauty, like truth and justice, lives within us; like virtue, and like moral law, it is a companion of the soul.

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

George Bancroft
Style is the gossamer on which the needs of truth float through the world.

George Bancroft
Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God Himself, were it possible.

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

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

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

George Bancroft
It never was a prosperous world
Since priests have interfer'd with temporal matters;
The custom of their ancestors they slight,
And change their shirts of hair for robes of gold;
Thus luxury and interest rule the church,
Whilst piety and conscience dwell in caves.

George Bancroft
Pedants are men who would appear to be learned, without the necessary ingredient of knowledge.

George Bancroft
Calvinism [in Switzerland]…established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.

George Bancroft
It is sometimes said that the abundance of vacant land operates as the safety valve of our system.

George Bancroft
Commerce defies every wind, outrides every tempest, and invades every zone.

George Bancroft