William Edward Hartpole Lecky

"Ambition is the luxury of the happy. It is sometimes, but more rarely, the consolation and distraction of the wretched..."

"The great art in politics consists not in hearing those who speak, but in hearing those who are silent."

"The great difficulty of Christianity is that many of the Bible revelations seem to clash with our sense of justice and right."

"In looking back, with our present experience, we are driven to the melancholy conclusion that, instead of diminishing the number of wars, ecclesiastical influence has actually and very seriously incre…"

"Terror is everywhere the beginning of religion."

"Men continually forget that Happiness is a condition of Mind, and not a disposition of circumstances, and one of the most common of errors is that of confusing happiness with the means of happiness, s…"

"It is abundantly evident, both from history and from present experience, that the instinctive shock, or natural feeling of disgust, caused by the sight of the sufferings of men is not generically diff…"

"There can indeed be little doubt that for nearly two hundred years after its establishment in Europe, the Christian community exhibited a moral purity which, if it has been equaled, has never for any …"