Quotes by George Bancroft

It is when the hour of conflict is over that history comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim, "Lo, God is here, and we knew Him not!"

— George Bancroft

Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.

— George Bancroft

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.

— George Bancroft

Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul.

— George Bancroft

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.

— George Bancroft

By common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy.

— George Bancroft

The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.

— George Bancroft

Courage

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

— George Bancroft

Where the people possess no authority, their rights obtain no respect.

— George Bancroft

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement.

— George Bancroft

In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person.

— George Bancroft

Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.

— George Bancroft

Education

The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.

— George Bancroft

The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.

— George Bancroft

If reason is a universal faculty, the decision of the common mind is the nearest criterion of truth.

— George Bancroft

Avarice is the vice of declining years.

— George Bancroft