The colonies had little occasion to feel or to resent direct royal prerogative.

Each colony became accustomed to planting new settlements and to claiming new boundaries.

In appearance the labor system of all the colonies was the same.

The old charters of Massachusetts, Virginia, and the Carolinas had given title to strips of territory extending from the Atlantic westward to the Pacific.

Few characters in history are indispensable.

The Stuart sovereigns of England steadily attempted to strengthen their power, and the resistance to that effort caused an immense growth of Parliamentary influence.

Besides paid white laborers, there was everywhere a class of white servants bound without wages for a term of years, and a more miserable class of Negro slaves.

In some of the middle colonies the towns and counties were both active and had a relation with each other which was the forerunner of the present system of local government in the Western States.

From William of Orange to William Pitt the younger there was but one man without whom English history must have taken a different turn, and that was William Pitt the elder.

Everywhere among the English-speaking race criminal justice was rude, and punishments were barbarous; but the tendency was to do away with special privileges and legal exemptions.

Many attempts had been made by colonial legislatures to cut off or to tax the importation of slaves.

On March 10, 1764, preliminary resolutions passed the House of Commons looking towards the Stamp Act.

The participation of the people in their own government was the more significant, because the colonies actually had what England only seemed to have, - three departments of government.

More emphasis was thus thrown upon the local governments than in England.

In any event, colonization and the grant of lands were provincial matters.

The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for making laws and carrying on government.

The colonies had little occasion to feel or to resent direct royal prerogative.

One of the strongest and most persistent elements in national development has been that inheritance of political traditions and usages which the new settlers brought with them.

The residence of the Plymouth settlers in the Netherlands, and the later conquest of the Dutch colonies, had brought the Americans into contact with the singularly wise and free institutions of the Dutch.

In each colony in 1750 were to be found two sets of governing organizations, - the local and the general.

In comparison with other men of their time, the Americans were distinguished by the possession of new political and social ideas, which were destined to be the foundation of the American commonwealth.

As often happens during a war, some parts of the country prospered, notwithstanding the constant loss.

Washington's defeat in 1754 was followed by active military preparations on both sides.

In 1763 the English were the most powerful nation in the world.

England and France were rivals, not only on the continent, but in the West Indies, in India, and in Europe.

In government as well as in trade a new era came to the colonies in 1763.

Taxation is the price which civilized communities pay for the opportunity of remaining civilized.

Traveling in India gives you a chance to observe a renaissance.

From the first slave ship arriving in harbor, America stole and judged blacks. Black life that didn't fit into white logic was commercially exploited or lynched.

Make a commitment to having fun. See your best friends and make time for your hobbies and passions.

Very, very rare that you do a job knowing that the audience is desperate for you to do that job. Most films you make don't get released, is the fact.

Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.

He is far too intelligent to become really cerebral.

In Britain, we are not a secular state as France is, or some other countries.

We are born by accident into a purely random universe

In our time the curse is monetary illiteracy just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.

I don't stare at a sheet of paper and try to think of a good word to use. I try to see where the story should go.

While early childhood experiences may impel, they do not compel. In the end, evil is a matter of choice.

95% of the album is my writing, by choice, because it seems to be what the distributors want.

My daughter, when she was younger, was crazy about 'The X-Files,' so I'd watch that with her.

This has been a most wonderful evening. Gertrude has said things tonight it will take her 10 years to understand.

It actually does matter what people think about you.

Childhood has its secrets and its mysteries but who can tell or who can explain them

I started writing stories when I was six years old. I was a very shy kid, extremely shy, and I had a fabulous first-grade teacher who told me to write.

I spent most of my time with adults because although my parents were older when they had me, they're really like teenagers. I sort of became the third musketeer.

The kinds of roles dogs fill can be hard to come by in human relationships. We touch the dog or the pet at whim. There is a lack of self-consciousness and a fluidity to it that is absent from most human relationships. If someone acted that way to you, you'd feel claustrophobic pretty quickly. It's a boundary violation.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing.

When you shoot for the stars, you can't ever look back.

I just follow great people. If you want to play like a pro, you learn from the pros.