Examine Quotes - page 4
The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate [a free inquiry]? The blackest billingsgate, most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.
John Adams
Take notice, Pheidias, that you are human yourself, and that the wretched man is also human, in order that you may not covet what's beyond you. But when you say that you suffer from insomnia, you'll know the cause if you'll examine yourself what man you are. You take a stroll in the market-place; you come in forthwith; if your two legs are tired you take a luxurious bath; you rise up and eat greedily at pleasure; your life itself is a sleep. In fine, you have no ill; your disease is luxury through which you have passed - but something rather hackneyed, my young master, occurs to me - please excuse me - as the saying goes, you know, you are so crowded by your blessings, know it well, that you have no room to defecate.
Menander
I feel, Sir, at this instant, how much I had been animated in my childhood by a recital of England's victories:-I was taught, Sir, by one whose memory I shall ever revere, that at the close of a war, far different indeed from this, she had dictated the terms of peace to submissive nations. This, in which I place something more than a common interest, was the memorable aera of England's glory. But that aera is past...the visions of her power and pre-eminence are passed away...Let us examine what is left, with a manly and determined courage...Let us feel our calamities-let us bear them too, like men.
William Pitt the Younger