Goldwin Smith Quotes

Canada is said to have got its name from the two Spanish words aca and nada, signifying 'there is nothing here.'

The insular arrogance of the English character is a commonplace joke.

Rich by nature, poor by policy' might be written over Canada's door.

Personality is lower than partiality.

It is evident that in the period designated as that of the kings, when Rome commenced her career of conquest, she was, for that time and country, a great and wealthy city.

We must also be permitted to bear in mind that evolution, though it may explain everything else, cannot explain itself.

The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party.

If it were a real effort to live in the Middle Ages, your life would be one perpetual prevarication.

The novelist must ground his work in faithful study of human nature.

There is a spell in mediaeval Art which has had power to bewitch some people into trying, or wishing to try, or fancying that they wish to try or making believe to fancy that they wish to try, to bring back the Middle Ages.

That Rome was comparatively great and wealthy is certain.

Every one who has a heart, however ignorant of architecture he may be, feels the transcendent beauty and poetry of the mediaeval churches.

Rome was great in arms, in government, in law.

There are the manufacturing multitudes of England; they must have work, and find markets for their work; if machines and the Black Country are ugly, famine would be uglier still.

Art is expression, and to have high expression you must have something high to express.

The Romans, we are told, were by nature a peculiarly warlike race.

America is supposed to be given over to ugliness. There are a good many ugly things there and the ugliest are the most pretentious.

Ottawa - a sub-arctic lumber-village converted by royal mandate into a political cockpit.

Ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the best instrument for cultivating the historical sense.

I heard Thackeray thank Heaven for the purity of Dickens. I thanked Heaven for the purity of a greater than Dickens - Thackeray himself.

No student of history can fail to see the moral interest of the Middle Ages, any more than an artist can fail to see their aesthetic interest.

Whatever things may have been in their origin, they are what they are, both in themselves and in regard to their indications respecting other beings or influences the existence of which may be implied in theirs.

Dante himself is open to the suspicion of partiality: it is said, not without apparent ground, that he puts into hell all the enemies of the political cause, which, in his eyes, was that of Italy and God.

Who can doubt that between the English and the French, between the Scotch and the Irish, there are differences of character which have profoundly affected and still affect the course of history?

It is needless to say how great has been the influence of the doctrine of Evolution, or rather perhaps of the method of investigation to which it has given birth, upon the study of history, especially the history of institutions.

Never had there been such an attempt to make conquest the servant of civilization. About keeping India there is no question. England has a real duty there.

We Jews regard our race as superior to all humanity, and look forward, not to its ultimate union with other races, but to its triumph over them.

The Roman legions were formed in the first instance of citizen soldiers, who yet had been made to submit to a rigid discipline, and to feel that in that submission lay their strength.