John Lothrop Motley

“The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.”

“For a century longer, Rome still retains its outward form, but the swarming nations are now in full career.”

“The finger of the atheists' own divinity, Reason, wrote on the wall the appalling judgments that there is no God; that the universe is only matter in spontaneous motion; and, most grievous word of all, that what men call their souls die with the death of the body, as music dies when the strings are broken.”

“A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman.”

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

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

“A good lawyer is a bad Christian.”

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

“You will find most books worth reading are worth reading twice.”

“The crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Thus again the Netherlands, for the first time since the fall of Rome, were united under one crown imperial. They had already been once united, in their slavery to Rome.”