Quotations from John L. Motley Works

Chapter 3

Chapter 31,008 wordsPublic domain

A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman A good lawyer is a bad Christian A most fatal success A common hatred united them, for a time at least Absurd affectation of candor Agreements were valid only until he should repent All the majesty which decoration could impart All Protestants were beheaded, burned, or buried alive All claimed the privilege of persecuting Always less apt to complain of irrevocable events Amuse them with this peace negotiation Are apt to discharge such obligations--(by) ingratitude Arrive at their end by fraud, when violence will not avail them As the old woman had told the Emperor Adrian Attachment to a half-drowned land and to a despised religion Barbara Blomberg, washerwoman of Ratisbon Beautiful damsel, who certainly did not lack suitors Believed in the blessed advent of peace Blessing of God upon the Devil's work Breath, time, and paper were profusely wasted and nothing gained Bribed the Deity Care neither for words nor menaces in any matter Character of brave men to act, not to expect Claimed the praise of moderation that their demands were so few Colonel Ysselstein, "dismissed for a homicide or two" Compassing a country's emancipation through a series of defeats Conflicting claims of prerogative and conscience Confused conferences, where neither party was entirely sincere Country would bear his loss with fortitude Customary oaths, to be kept with the customary conscientiousness Daily widening schism between Lutherans and Calvinists Deadliest of sins, the liberty of conscience Difficult for one friend to advise another in three matters Distinguished for his courage, his cruelty, and his corpulence Don John of Austria Don John was at liberty to be King of England and Scotland Dying at so very inconvenient a moment Eight thousand human beings were murdered Establish not freedom for Calvinism, but freedom for conscience Everything was conceded, but nothing was secured Fanatics of the new religion denounced him as a godless man Ferocity which even Christians could not have surpassed Forgiving spirit on the part of the malefactor Glory could be put neither into pocket nor stomach God has given absolute power to no mortal man Great error of despising their enemy Happy to glass themselves in so brilliant a mirror He had never enjoyed social converse, except at long intervals He would have no Calvinist inquisition set up in its place He would have no persecution of the opposite creed His personal graces, for the moment, took the rank of virtues Hope delayed was but a cold and meagre consolation Human ingenuity to inflict human misery I regard my country's profit, not my own Imagined, and did the work of truth In character and general talents he was beneath mediocrity Indecision did the work of indolence Insinuate that his orders had been hitherto misunderstood It is not desirable to disturb much of that learned dust Its humility, seemed sufficiently ironical Judas Maccabaeus King set a price upon his head as a rebel Like a man holding a wolf by the ears Local self-government which is the life-blood of liberty Logical and historical argument of unmerciful length Made no breach in royal and Roman infallibility Mankind were naturally inclined to calumny Men were loud in reproof, who had been silent Mistake to stumble a second time over the same stone Modern statesmanship, even while it practises, condemns More easily, as he had no intention of keeping the promise Natural to judge only by the result Necessary to make a virtue of necessity Neither wished the convocation, while both affected an eagerness Neither ambitious nor greedy No man ever understood the art of bribery more thoroughly No authority over an army which they did not pay No man could reveal secrets which he did not know Not so successful as he was picturesque Not upon words but upon actions Not to fall asleep in the shade of a peace negotiation Nothing was so powerful as religious difference Of high rank but of lamentably low capacity On the first day four thousand men and women were slaughtered One-half to Philip and one-half to the Pope and Venice (slaves) Our pot had not gone to the fire as often Peace was desirable, it might be more dangerous than war Peace, in reality, was war in its worst shape Perfection of insolence Plundering the country which they came to protect Pope excommunicated him as a heretic Power grudged rather than given to the deputies Preferred an open enemy to a treacherous protector Presumption in entitling themselves Christian Preventing wrong, or violence, even towards an enemy Proposition made by the wolves to the sheep, in the fable Protect the common tranquillity by blood, purse, and life Quite mistaken: in supposing himself the Emperor's child Rebuked the bigotry which had already grown Reformer who becomes in his turn a bigot is doubly odious Reformers were capable of giving a lesson even to inquisitors Republic, which lasted two centuries Result was both to abandon the provinces and to offend Philip Sentimentality that seems highly apocryphal She knew too well how women were treated in that country Superfluous sarcasm Suppress the exercise of the Roman religion Taxes upon income and upon consumption The disunited provinces The more conclusive arbitration of gunpowder There is no man who does not desire to enjoy his own They could not invent or imagine toleration Those who "sought to swim between two waters" Those who fish in troubled waters only to fill their own nets Throw the cat against their legs To hear the last solemn commonplaces Toleration thought the deadliest heresy of all Unduly dejected in adversity Unremitted intellectual labor in an honorable cause Usual phraseology of enthusiasts Uunmeaning phrases of barren benignity Volatile word was thought preferable to the permanent letter Was it astonishing that murder was more common than fidelity? Word-mongers who, could clothe one shivering thought Worn crescents in their caps at Leyden Worship God according to the dictates of his conscience Writing letters full of injured innocence

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