Quotes from John Robert Seeley

Life may not be beautiful, but it is interesting.

No virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic.

History without politics descends to mere Literature.

Politics are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical politics.

We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.

History, while it should be scientific in its method, should pursue a practical object. That is, it should not merely gratify the reader's curiosity about the past, but modify his view of the present and his forecast of the future.

History without political science has no fruit. Political science without history has no root.

Commerce in itself may favour peace, but when commerce is artificially shut out by a decree of Government from some promising territory, then commerce just as naturally favours war.