Able Quote by Frederick Rolfe

“Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done…

— Thucydides

“Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage…

— Thucydides

“The French know the intrinsic value of holding on to the past, its pleasures, its promises, and its tender mercies.”

— Peggy Kopman-Owens

“(Note: Extreme sensibility of the French sometimes makes them difficult to deal with.)”

— E.M. Delafield

“An inchoate mass of ambition, Julius knew that he had soon, soon to find something to be ambitious for; otherwise, he risked terminal resentment,…

— Claire Messud

Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.

— Joseph Addison

There was more courage in bearing trouble than in escaping from it; the brave and the energetic cling to hope, even in spite of…

— Tacitus

“Des Grieux was like all Frenchmen, that is, cheerful and amiable when it was necessary and profitable, and insufferably dull when the necessity to…

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I have confronted theoretical positions whose protagonists claim that what I take to be historically produced characteristics of what is specifically modern are in…

— Alasdair MacIntyre

A tendency to exaggeration was a Roman trait.

— Edith Hamilton

The spectator and historian of [Belisarius's] exploits has observed, that amidst the perils of war, he was daring without rashness, prudent without fear, slow…

— Edward Gibbon

“suggested elegance, as if the Romans didn’t have enough on their own. Yet”

— Noel Hynd