In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves.

A soil, exhausted by the long culture of Pagan empires, was to lie fallow for a still longer period.

The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak and timid persons into servitude.

For a century longer, Rome still retains its outward form, but the swarming nations are now in full career.

When did one man ever civilize a people?

Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.

History shows how feeble are barriers of paper.

In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves.

The crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs.

With the Germans, the sovereignty resided in the great assembly of the people.

A good lawyer is a bad Christian.

A terrible animal, indeed, is an unbridled woman.

The history of the Franks becomes, therefore, the history of the Netherlands.

Wealth brings strength, strength confidence.

The sword - the first, for a time the only force: the force of iron.

A new civilization was not to be improvised by a single mind.

Thus again the Netherlands, for the first time since the fall of Rome, were united under one crown imperial. They had already been once united, in their slavery to Rome.

The gigantic Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies.

The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.

Enthusiasm could not supply the place of experience.

A third force, developing itself more slowly, becomes even more potent than the rest: the power of gold.

Thus the liberties of Holland and Flanders waxed, daily, stronger.

Thus the whole country was broken into many shreds and patches of sovereignty.

The rise of the Dutch Republic must ever be regarded as one of the leading events of modern times.

The whole territory of the Netherlands was girt with forests.

In the tenth century the old Batavian and later Roman forms have faded away.

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition.

I believe in the nobility of entertaining people and I take great, great pride that people are willing to give me two or three hours of their busy lives.

War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.

Nobility, without virtue, is a fine setting without a gem.

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

The human element, the human flaw and the human nobility - those are the reasons that chess matches are won or lost.

In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passe abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.

The German people is not marked by original sin, but by original nobility.

Virtue is the truest nobility.

Strip the proud nobility of their bloated estates, reduce them to a level with plain republicans, send forth to labor, and teach their children to enter the workshops or handle the plow, and you will thus humble proud traitors.

True revolutionaries are like God - they create the world in their own image. Our awesome responsibility to ourselves, to our children, and to the future is to create ourselves in the image of goodness, because the future depends on the nobility of our imaginings.

For as long as this nation has known war, we have embraced the heroes it has produced. Americans have rightfully noted the honor and nobility of courage under hostile fire and thanked those who perished in their defense.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.

The army is the true nobility of our country.

Now, my father Matthias was not only eminent on account of is nobility, but had a higher commendation on account of his righteousness, and was in great reputation in Jerusalem, the greatest city we have.

Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.

True nobility is exempt from fear.

Idleness is an appendix to nobility.