George Bancroft

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

— George Bancroft

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

— George Bancroft

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

— George Bancroft

Avarice is the vice of declining years.

— George Bancroft

Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.

— George Bancroft

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

— George Bancroft

If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal?

— George Bancroft

The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.

— George Bancroft

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

— George Bancroft

By common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy.

— George Bancroft

I find the name of Jesus Christ written on the top of every page of modern history.

— George Bancroft

Ennui is the desire of activity without the fit means of gratifying the desire.

— George Bancroft

In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person.

— George Bancroft

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement.

— George Bancroft

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are blindly adopted; the second wilfully preferred.

— George Bancroft

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

— George Bancroft

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement; and…

— George Bancroft

The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development…

— George Bancroft

In 1688 England contracted to the Netherlands the highest debt that one nation can owe to another. Herself not knowing how to…

— George Bancroft

The charities of life are scattered everywhere, enameling the vales of human beings as the flowers paint the meadows. They are not…

— George Bancroft

“The disturbances in the country grew not out of anything republican, but out of slavery, which is a part of the system…

— George Bancroft

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.

— George Bancroft

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully…

— George Bancroft

Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral…

— George Bancroft

Institutions may crumble and governments fall, but it is only that they may renew a better youth, and mount upwards like the…

— George Bancroft

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

— George Bancroft

The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over…

— George Bancroft

Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.

— George Bancroft

It [Calvinism] established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.

— George Bancroft

“Palmerston did nothing that will endure; LINCOLN finished a work which all time cannot overthrow. Palmerston”

— George Bancroft