There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II. But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen. - Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay

What an incalculable debt do we owe to that little speck of land, Greece.—The principles of taste, the finest models of composition, the doctrines and the glorious examples to which we owe political freedom, the arts, the sciences, architecture, sculpture, every thing that is great and splendid in literature and politics, must be considered as ultimately derived from that little peninsula.

The only revolutions wh[ich] have turned out well have been defensive revolutions – ours of 1688 – the French of 1830 – the American was, to a great extent, of the same kind.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.