Quotes by John Motley

• The gigantic Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies.
• The rise of the Dutch Republic must ever be regarded as one of the leading events of modern times.
• The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.
• The whole territory of the Netherlands was girt with forests.
• The history of the Franks becomes, therefore, the history of the Netherlands.
• Thus the liberties of Holland and Flanders waxed, daily, stronger.
• Thus the whole country was broken into many shreds and patches of sovereignty.
• Wealth brings strength, strength confidence.
• With the Germans, the sovereignty resided in the great assembly of the people.
• The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak and timid persons into servitude.
• The sword - the first, for a time the only force: the force of iron.
• When did one man ever civilize a people?
• A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman.
• 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.
• A good lawyer is a bad Christian.
• The crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs.
• A soil, exhausted by the long culture of Pagan empires, was to lie fallow for a still longer period.
• A third force, developing itself more slowly, becomes even more potent than the rest: the power of gold.
• Enthusiasm could not supply the place of experience.
• For a century longer, Rome still retains its outward form, but the swarming nations are now in full career.
• Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.
• History shows how feeble are barriers of paper.
• In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves.
• In the tenth century the old Batavian and later Roman forms have faded away.
• A new civilization was not to be improvised by a single mind.