George Bancroft quotes

George Bancroft was an American historian and statesman widely regarded for his authoritative works on the history of the United States. His scholarship played a significant role in shaping American historical thought and public education. He contributed greatly to diplomacy, serving as U.S. Secretary of the Navy and as ambassador to the United Kingdom and Germany. Here are 30 of his quotes:

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

George Bancroft

The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.

George Bancroft

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

George Bancroft

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.

George Bancroft

Avarice is the vice of declining years.

George Bancroft

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

George Bancroft

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

George Bancroft

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

George Bancroft

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement; and if a story is told of more than common interest, ennui is sure to have its joy in adding embellishments. If hours did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal?

George Bancroft

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

George Bancroft

Beauty is but the sensible image of the infinite. Like truth and justice, it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law, it is a companion of the soul.

George Bancroft

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

George Bancroft

The glory of God is not contingent on man's good will, but all existence subserves his purposes.

George Bancroft

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

George Bancroft

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

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.

George Bancroft

The progress of man consists in this, that he himself arrives at the perception of truth.

George Bancroft

The universe is the reflex and image of its Creator.

George Bancroft

They speak falsely who say that truth is the daughter of time; it is the child of eternity, and as old as the Divine mind.

George Bancroft

No science has been reached, no thought generated, no truth discovered, which has not from all time existed potentially in every human mind.

George Bancroft

Things proceed as they were ordered, in their nice, and well-adjusted, and perfect harmony; so that as the hand of the skilful artist gathers music from the harp-strings, history calls it forth from the well-tuned chords of time.

George Bancroft