Goldwin Smith

“That Rome was comparatively great and wealthy is certain.”

“Dante himself is open to the suspicion of partiality: it is said, not without apparent ground, that he puts into hell all the enemies of the political cause, which, in his eyes, was that of Italy and God.”

“No student of history can fail to see the moral interest of the Middle Ages, any more than an artist can fail to see their aesthetic interest.”

“There are the manufacturing multitudes of England; they must have work, and find markets for their work; if machines and the Black Country are ugly, famine would be uglier still.”

“Rome was great in arms, in government, in law.”

“As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old, inwardly its poetry is much deeper.”

“The Roman legions were formed in the first instance of citizen soldiers, who yet had been made to submit to a rigid discipline, and to feel that in that submission lay their strength.”

“Whatever things may have been in their origin, they are what they are, both in themselves and in regard to their indications respecting other beings or influences the existence of which may be implied in theirs.”

“It is needless to say how great has been the influence of the doctrine of Evolution, or rather perhaps of the method of investigation to which it has given birth, upon the study of history, especially the history of institutions.”

“I heard Thackeray thank Heaven for the purity of Dickens. I thanked Heaven for the purity of a greater than Dickens - Thackeray himself.”

“The novelist must ground his work in faithful study of human nature.”

“Yet for my part, deeply as I am moved by the religious architecture of the Middle Ages, I cannot honestly say that I ever felt the slightest emotion in any modern Gothic church.”

“We must also be permitted to bear in mind that evolution, though it may explain everything else, cannot explain itself.”

“Personality is lower than partiality.”

“The natural barriers between England and Scotland were not sufficient to prevent the extension of the Saxon settlements and kingdoms across the border.”

“The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party.”

“Above all nations is humanity.”

“The insular arrogance of the English character is a commonplace joke.”

“Every one who has a heart, however ignorant of architecture he may be, feels the transcendent beauty and poetry of the mediaeval churches.”

“America is supposed to be given over to ugliness. There are a good many ugly things there and the ugliest are the most pretentious.”