Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by George Bancroft (American Historian)

George Bancroft (1800–91) was an American historian and politician. Known as “The Father of American History,” he wrote the comprehensive 10-volume study of the origins and development of the United States.

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Bancroft studied divinity at Harvard and history at Göttingen. He lectured in Greek at Harvard, preached, and founded a school using the advanced European methods.

Bancroft wrote both poetry and prose. His major work was the monumental History of the United States (10 vols., 1834–40, 1852–74.) A still later edition (1885) included a two-volume study, The History of the Formation of the Federal Constitution (1882.)

A Democrat, Bancroft served under President James K. Polk as Secretary to the Navy (1845–46) and established the Naval Academy at Annapolis. He was the United States Minister in Great Britain (1846–49) and Germany (1871–74.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by 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
Topics: Gossip

The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.
George Bancroft
Topics: Right

The charities of life are scattered everywhere, enameling the vales of human beings as the flowers paint the meadows. They are not the fruit of study, nor the privilege of refinement, but a natural instinct.
George Bancroft
Topics: Charity

Our land is not more the recipient of the men of all countries than of their ideas.
George Bancroft
Topics: Ideas

Ambition itself is not so reckless of human life as ennui.—Clemency is a favorite attribute of the former, but ennui has the taste of a cannibal.
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
Topics: Beauty

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
Topics: Intelligence

Atheism is the folly of the metaphysician, not the folly of human nature.
George Bancroft
Topics: Atheism

Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.
George Bancroft
Topics: Style

Sedition is bred in the lap of luxury and its chosen emissaries are the beggared spendthrift and the impoverished libertine.
George Bancroft
Topics: Luxury

Ennui is a word which the French invented, though of all nations in Europe they know the least of it.
George Bancroft

Do what you fear most and you control fear.
George Bancroft
Topics: Fear

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
Topics: Authority

At the foot of every page in the annals of nations may be written, “God reigns.” Events as they pass away proclaim their original; and if you will but listen reverently, you may hear the receding centuries, as they roll into the dim distances of departed time, perpetually chanting “Te Deum Laudamus,” with all the choral voices of the countless congregations of the age.
George Bancroft
Topics: God

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.
George Bancroft
Topics: Prejudice

So grasping is dishonesty, that it is no respecter of persons; it will cheat friends as well as foes; and were it possible, would cheat even God himself.
George Bancroft

He that will not honor the memory, and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but little of the origin of American independence.
George Bancroft

By common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy.
George Bancroft
Topics: Vanity, Hair

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.
George Bancroft
Topics: Public

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
Topics: Slander, Insults

Conscience is the mirror of our souls which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.
George Bancroft
Topics: Conscience

Avarice is the vice of declining years.
George Bancroft
Topics: Greed

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

Commerce defies every wind, outrides every tempest and invades every zone.
George Bancroft

The measure of progress of civilization is the progress of the people.
George Bancroft
Topics: Progress

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.
George Bancroft
Topics: Deception/Lying

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