Letters on the Study and Use of History, 2. köide

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Page 224 - I placed so that she might snatch them away without giving me any disturbance. I kept a great interval between me and them. She took them, but she could not tear them from me. No man suffers by bad fortune but he who has been deceived by good. If we grow fond of her gifts, fancy that they belong to us and are perpetually to remain with us, if we lean upon them, and expect to be considered for them : we shall sink into all the bitterness of grief, as soon as these false and transitory benefits pass...
Page 228 - ... vice ? Some are drawn by ambition, and some are sent by duty ; many resort thither to improve their minds, and many to improve their fortunes ; others bring their beauty, and others their eloquence, to market. Remove from hence, and go to the utmost extremities of the East...
Page 237 - There is no part of the world from whence we may not admire those planets which roll like ours, in different orbits, round the same central sun; from whence we may not discover an object still more stupendous, that army of fixed stars hung up in the immense space of the universe; innumerable suns, whose beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll...
Page 63 - ... disastrous campaigns, we saw every scene of the war full of action. All those wherein he appeared, and many of those wherein he was not then an actor — but abettor, however, of their action — were crowned with the most triumphant success. I take with pleasure this opportunity of doing justice to that great man, whose faults I knew, whose virtues I admired, and whose memory, as the greatest general and as the greatest minister that our country or perhaps any other has produced, I honour.
Page 22 - I said above remained to be done, and if the Emperor put it out of our power to do another of them with advantage ; were we to put it still more out of our power, and to wait unarmed for the death of the king of Spain ? In fine, if we had not the...
Page 50 - ... of those who govern or are governed in them, will incline to think, that if the scales can be brought back by a war, nearly, though not exactly, to the point they were at before this...
Page 62 - Marlborough was raised to the head of the army, and indeed of the confederacy, where he, a new, a private man, a subject, acquired by merit and by management a more deciding influence, than high birth, confirmed authority, and even the crown of Great Britain, had given to King William. Not only all the parts of that vast machine, the grand alliance, were kept more compact and entire, but a more rapid and vigorous motion was given to the whole, and, instead of languishing or disastrous campaigns,...
Page 70 - I think, that the war was wise and just before the change, because necessary to maintain that equality among the powers of Europe on which the public peace and common prosperity depends...
Page 196 - But my genius, unlike the demon of Socrates, whispered so softly, that very often I heard him not, in the hurry of those passions by which I was transported. Some calmer hours there were: in them I hearkened to him. Reflection had often its turn, and the love of study and the desire of knowledge have never quite abandoned me. I am not therefore entirely unprepared for the life I will lead, and it is not without reason that I promise myself more satisfaction in the latter part of it, than I ever knew...
Page 220 - Let us set all our past and present afflictions at once before our eyes. Let us resolve to overcome them, instead of flying from them, or wearing out the sense of them by long and ignominious patience. Instead of palliating remedies, let us use the incision-knife and the caustic, search the wound to the bottom, and work an immediate and radical cure.

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