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

But if anyone supposes that there was no commercial fraud in the Middle Ages, let him study the commercial legislation of England for that period, and his mind will be satisfied, if he has a mind to be satisfied and not only a fancy to run away with him.

Personality is lower than partiality.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

Above all nations is humanity.

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

That Rome was comparatively great and wealthy is certain.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The natural barriers between England and Scotland were not sufficient to prevent the extension of the Saxon settlements and kingdoms across the border.

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

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.

The materials of the novelist must be real; they must be gathered from the field of humanity by his actual observation.

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.

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

As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old, inwardly its poetry is much deeper.

Yet for my part, deeply as I am moved by the religious architecture of the Middle Ages, I cannot honestly say that I ever felt the slightest emotion in any modern Gothic church.

Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.

Sexual self-restraint is only a preliminary stage in the ego's evolution.

I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.

The theory of evolution is totally inadequate to explain the origin and manifestation of the inorganic world.

Why is it so painful to watch a person sink? Because there is something unnatural in it, for nature demands personal progress, evolution, and every backward step means wasted energy.

I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.

Unless one is a religious fundamentalist and believes that man was created in the image and likeness of God, it is foolish to believe that human beings are exempt from biological classification and the laws of evolution that apply to all other life forms.

You have to look at history as an evolution of society.

If we turn to palaeontology to tell us about our biological evolution it is to prehistory that we look for evidence of the evolution of specifically human patterns of behaviour.

In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.

In the span of my own lifetime I observed such wondrous progress in plant evolution that I look forward optimistically to a healthy, happy world as soon as its children are taught the principles of simple and rational living.

My most ardent desire is that my country will recapture its historic opportunity for a peaceful evolution and that Poland will prove to the world that even the most complex situations can be solved by a dialogue and not by force.

There are very few men and women in whom a Universalist feeling is altogether lacking; its prevalence suggests that it must be part of our inborn nature and have a place in Nature's scheme of evolution.

We're all like little ants who scurry around with the materials that are at hand right now. Each generation finds new materials. Its just evolution, isn't it?

Evolution, of course, is not something that simply applies to life here on earth; it applies to the whole universe.

The intellectual evolution of the race consists in an increase in the number, delicacy, complexity, permanence and speed of formation of such associations.

It's the lie of evolution that all man are just evolved and that they're all equal, and that all creatures are equal.

The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.

This is actually a very important principle that science is learning about large systems like evolution and that futurists are learning about anticipating human society: just because a future scenario is plausible doesn't mean we can get there from here.