George Bancroft Quotations

Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.

Not in vain has Lincoln lived, for he has helped to make this republic an example of justice, with no caste but the caste of humanity.

The measure of progress of civilization is the progress of the people.

In 1688 England contracted to the Netherlands the highest debt that one nation can owe to another. Herself not knowing how to recover her liberties, they were restored by men of the United Provinces.

If reason is a universal faculty, the decision of the common mind is the nearest criterion of truth.

Avarice is the vice of declining years.

The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.

Sedition is bred in the lap of luxury and its chosen emissaries are the beggared spendthrift and the impoverished libertine.

The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break.

Libraries collect the works of genius of every language and every age.