Quotes from William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The Augustinian doctrine of the damnation of unbaptized infants and the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation… surpass in atrocity any tenets that have ever been admitted into any pagan creed.

There are times in the lives of most of us when we would have given all the world to be as we were but yesterday, though that yesterday had passed over us unappreciated and unenjoyed.

At one time the benevolent affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expanding includes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity, and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of man with the animal world.

Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which the bark of human happiness is most often wrecked.

The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations.

There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Caesars; but there has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled.

Whence has come thy lasting power.

Pleasures that are in themselves innocent lose their power of pleasing if they become the sole or main object of pursuit.

In proportion to its power, Protestantism has been as persecuting as Catholicism.

The contraction of theological influence has been at once the best measure, and the essential condition of intellectual advance.

Terror is everywhere the beginning of religion.

Physical science has taught us to associate Deity with the normal rather than with the abnormal.

The simple record of these three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the discourses of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.

Passions weaken, but habits strengthen, with age, and it is the great task of youth to set the current of habit and to form the tastes which are most productive of happiness in life.

One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either intellect or fortune.

There is no possible line of conduct which has at some time and place been condemned, and which has not at some other time and place been enjoined as a duty.

Fierce invectives against women form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the Church fathers.

There is no wild beast so ferocious as Christians who differ concerning their faith.