Quotes from John Lothrop Motley

History shows how feeble are barriers of paper.

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

When did one man ever civilize a people?

A good lawyer is a bad Christian.

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

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

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

Wealth brings strength, strength confidence.

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

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

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

The whole territory of the Netherlands was girt with forests.

Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessities.

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

Local self-government…is the life-blood of liberty.

As long as he [William of Orange] lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets.

Wealth brings strength, strength confidence.

A good lawyer is a bad Christian.

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

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

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

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

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

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