Quotes About Present times

There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.

The present times require the vigor and the activity of the prime of life; but I feel the increasing infirmities of age to such a degree, that I am conscious I cannot serve you to advantage.

Here Cornelius stopped and heaved a sigh. And yet, he continued, it would have been so very delightful to spend the hundred thousand guilders on the enlargement of my tulip-bed or even on a journey to the East, the country of beautiful flowers. But, alas! these are no thoughts for the present times, when muskets, standards, proclamations, and beating of drums are the order of the day.

The prevailing taste of the public for anecdote has been censured and ridiculed by critics, who aspire to the character of superior wisdom: but if we consider it in a proper point of view, this taste is an incontestible proof of the good sense and profoundly philosophic temper of the present times. Of the numbers who study, or at least who read history, how few derive any advantage from their labors!