Century Quotes - page 95
When the machinery of [Roman] imperial administration broke down in the provinces under the invasion of the barbarians in the fifth century the machinery of the Church remained unbroken. ...Ancient families became extinct and the Church became the heir of their lands and slaves and serfs. Small proprietors sought security by committing their lands to the Church and becoming its tenants.
Walter Rauschenbusch
He personifies liberalism for a generation -- much as William Gladstone did in British politics a century ago -- but in the America of 1990, that is a backhanded compliment at best. "After all is said and done," says Republican Party Chairman Lee Atwater, "Ted Kennedy is still the man in American politics Republicans love to hate." At least some of the blame for liberalism's decline may be laid at his door, and he has been unable to articulate a compelling vision of America's future acceptable to a majority of the Democratic Party, much less the American electorate. Ruled by his passions, for good and ill, he will forever draw resentment from those who believe he squandered his chance to leave a larger imprint on the society he hopes to better.
Ted Kennedy
The movement towards philanthropy instead of persecution, as an outlet for religious enthusiasm, was one of the characteristic fruits of the Revolution, as also was the improvement in public justice, both political and criminal. Because the Revolution Settlement was not a party victory, but an agreed compromise between Whig and Tory, Church and Dissent, it made humanity, moderation and co-operation the main current of affairs in the Eighteenth Century.
G. M. Trevelyan
Our formidable factions, for all their nonsense and violence, served to protect the liberty of the subject. It is only in States based on the less civilized principle that no party may exist save the party of government, that liberty of press and person can be totally destroyed, whether in the Eighteenth or the Twentieth Century. That is not the English tradition.
G. M. Trevelyan
The success of England and her allies in the War of the Spanish Succession, which curbed "the exorbitant power of France" for eighty years to come, influenced the whole tone of Eighteenth Century civilization in a thousand ways. The defeat of Louis is one of the most prominent facts in history. We are, therefore, apt to forget how very near he came to attaining world-power, by the retention of the whole Spanish Empire as a field of French influence, and by the virtual annexation of the Netherlands and of Italy as jewels in the French Crown. He was never nearer to success than in the spring of 1704. Nothing but the accident of Marlborough's genius, and some lucky turns of fortune in the field that year, diverted the paths of destiny.
G. M. Trevelyan
After long generations of trouble, persecution and hatred, England had at last won through to a period of domestic peace and individual freedom. It was not a period of avowed idealism; it was not a period of legislative reform. But neither idealism nor reform is the whole of life for men or nations. The vigour and initiative of Englishmen, at home and overseas, in all branches of human effort and intellect, were the admiration of Eighteenth Century Europe. The greatness of England in the Hanoverian epoch was made by men acting freely in a free community, with little help indeed from Church or State, but with no hindrance. The great art of letting your neighbour alone, even if he thinks differently from you, was learnt by Englishmen under Walpole, at a time when the lesson was still a strange one elsewhere. Some European countries have not learnt it to this day or are rapidly unlearning it again.
G. M. Trevelyan
Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns.... Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees. The key to the solution of the crisis is dialogue and mediation... There is nothing more undemocratic than a coup d'état and nothing more corrosive to the rule of law and to international stability when foreign governments meddle in the internal affairs of other states...
Alfred de Zayas
The Chinese people have always cherished goodwill towards the American people. In 1784, U.S. merchant ship, Empress of China, sailed to China, opening the friendly exchanges between our two peoples. In mid 19th century, several dozen thousand Chinese workers, working side-by-side with American workers and braving harsh conditions, built the great railway linking the East and the West of the American continent.
Hu Jintao
A presidential library is not just about one president; each library is about our nation and the world during that time. The George W. Bush Presidential Center reflects George's role as the first president of the 21st century. Like our new era, the building and its grounds are designed to be forward-looking, and they're green and sustainable. They celebrate the native environment of our home state of Texas. The archives housed here are completely digital. And the entire Bush Center is designed to present the past and engage the future. We welcome scholars, and students, and the community at large to gather here for generations to come.
Laura Welch Bush
Only one force can arise today to challenge the continuing decay and increasing barbarism of all regimes based upon exploitation: that of the producing class, the socialist proletariat. Constantly increasing in numbers through the industrialization of the world economy, ever more concentrated in the process of production, trained through misery and oppression to revolt against the ruling classes having had the chance to experience the results of its own "leadership," the working class, despite an increasing number of difficulties and obstacles, has ripened for revolution. The obstacles confronting it are not insurmountable. The whole history of the past century is there to prove that the proletariat represents, for the first time in human history, not only a class in revolt against exploitation but a class positively capable of overthrowing the exploiters and of organizing a free an d humane society. Its victory, and the fate of humanity, are in its hands.
Cornelius Castoriadis
Writing about the middle of the eighteenth century, David Hume proclaimed John Napier of Merchiston as 'the person to whom the title of a great man is more justly due than to any other whom his country ever produced.' This judgment of Hume is the more remarkable, seeing he was himself naturally disposed to exalt literature above science. ...when he awarded the first place among his countrymen to Napier... it was doubtless from an enlivened conviction that his work had been of greater service to humanity.
John Napier
Why did the problem of air become visible..? Why were Priestley, Boyle and Black able to see the question clearly enough..? ...because they had new tools. The air pump designed by Otto von Guericke and Boyle (...in collaboration with his assistant Robert Hooke...) were essential to Priestley's lab in Leeds. ...In a way, the air pump had enabled the entire field of pneumatic chemistry in the seventeenth century... [T]he air pump allowed you to... create a vacuum, which behaved markedly differently... even though air and the absence of air were visually indistinguishable.
Joseph Priestley
Had optical perception not evolved into something more than sensory perception, into super-sensory perception, then the present period would never have had the courage to discover the spiritual in matter. There would have been no fundamental difference between a painting by Picasso [from Picasso's so-called 'abstract' period] and one by Paulus Potter [Dutch painter from the 17th century, famous for his painting of cows].
Theo van Doesburg
A century hence, 2000 may be viewed as quite a primitive period in human history. It's something to hope for. ... I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer - born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow. As an engineer, I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession.
Neil Armstrong
At the moment when Congo reaches independence, the whole government wishes to pay solemn homage to the King of the Belgians, and to the noble people he represents for the work done here over three quarters of a century. I would not wish my feelings to be wrongly interpreted... Long live King Baudouin, Long live Belgium, Long live the independent Congo.
Patrice Lumumba
The population of these Pueblos will average nearly five hundred souls each (though some hardly exceed one hundred), making an aggregate of nine or ten thousand. At the time of the original conquest, at the close of the sixteenth century, they were, as has been mentioned, much, perhaps ten-fold, more numerous. Ancient ruins are now to be seen scattered in every quarter of the territory: of some, entire stone walls are yet standing, while others are nearly or quite obliterated, many of them being now only known by their names which history or tradition has preserved to us.
Josiah Gregg
Just remember. What have we taught India for a century? What have we taught her to expect? We have preached English institutions, democracy, and all the rest of it. We have dinned it in her ears, we have taught her the lesson, and she wants us to pay the bill to some extent. Now remember this. I have often talked in this country of the changes that have come at home through the War and since the War. Those changes have left no part of the world intact. There is a wind of nationalism and freedom running round the world and running as strongly in Asia, as he who runs may read, as in any part of the world.
Stanley Baldwin
