The outburst of the first crusade was splendid even in a military sense, but it was great beyond comparison in its reflexion in architecture, ornamen… - Henry Adams

Who, then, is right? How can we all be right? Half of our wise men declare that the world is going straight to perdition; the other half that it is fast becoming perfect. Both cannot be right.

Both were illogical and heretical by essence; — in strict discipline, in the days of the Holy Office, a hundred years later, both would have been burned by the Church, as Jeanne d'Arc was, with infinitely less reason, in 1431.

He betrayed the consciousness that he and his people had a past, if they dared but avow it, and might have a future, if they could but divine it.