William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Faith always presented to the mind the idea of an abnormal intellectual condition, of the subversion or suspension of the critical faculties.…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

There are times in the lives of most of us, when we would have given all the world to be as we…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

[Middleton] contended that the religious leaders of the fourth century had admitted, eulogised, and habitually acted upon principles that were diametrically opposed,…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Terror is everywhere the beginning of religion.

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The moral duty to be expected in different ages is not a unity of standard, or of acts, but a unity of…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

There is no possible line of conduct which has at some time and place been condemned, and which has not at some…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

I venture to maintain that there are multitudes to whom the necessity of discharging the duties of a butcher would be so…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which the bark of human happiness is most often wrecked.

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

“One of the great differences between childhood and manhood is that we come to like our work more than our play. It…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The doctrine of a material hell in its effect was to chill and deaden the sympathies, predispose men to inflict suffering, and…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

All over Europe the organs that represent dogmatic interests are in permanent opposition to the progressive tendencies around them, and are rapidly…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The simple record of these three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Contraction of theological influence has at once been the best measure, and the essential condition of intellectual advance.

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Fierce invectives against women form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the Church fathers.

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

There is no wild beast so ferocious as Christians who differ concerning their faith.

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Pleasures that are in themselves innocent lose their power of pleasing if they become the sole or main object of pursuit.

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The morals of men are more governed by their pursuits than by their opinions. A type of virtue is first formed by…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Whenever the clergy were at the elbow of the civil arm, no matter whether they were Catholic or Protestant, persecution was the…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The period of Catholic ascendancy was on the whole one of the most deplorable in the history of the human mind. .…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The animal world being altogether external to the scheme of redemption, was regarded as beyond the range of duty, and the belief…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Caesars; but there has probably never…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Abortion... was probably regarded by the average Roman of the later days of Paganism much as Englishmen in the last century regarded…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky

Nothing, indeed, could be more unlike the tone of the [Patristic] Fathers, than the cold, passionless, and prudential theology of the eighteenth…

— William Edward Hartpole Lecky