119 quotes found
"I know this goes without saying, but Stonehenge really was the most incredible accomplishment. It took five hundred men just to pull each sarsen, plus a hundred more to dash around positioning the rollers. Just think about it for a minute. Can you imagine trying to talk six hundred people into helping you drag a fifty-ton stone eighteen miles across the countryside and muscle it into an upright position, and then saying, "Right, lads! Another twenty like that, plus some lintels and maybe a couple of dozen nice bluestones from Wales, and we can party!" Whoever was the person behind Stonehenge was one dickens of a motivator, I'll tell you that."
"When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand. Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable; but those huge rude masses of stone, set on end, and piled each on other, turn the mind on the immense force necessary for such a work. Nay, the rudeness of the work increases this cause of grandeur, as it excludes the idea of art and contrivance; for dexterity produces another sort of effect, which is different enough from this."
"Much of what has been written about Stonehenge is derivative, second-rate or plain wrong."
"Hello, Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe!"
"Every age has the Stonehenge it deserves-or desires."
"I don't like the place at all. It's all wrong. An imposition on the Landscape. I reckon that Stonehenge was build by the contemporary equivalent of Microsoft, whereas Avebury was definitely an Apple circle."
"Stonehenge, where the demons dwell Where the banshees live and they do live well Stonehenge, where a man's a man And the children dance to the pipes of Pan."
"Our Soveraign here above the rest might stand; And here be chose again to rule the Land. These Ruines sheltered once His Sacred Head, Then when from Wor'ster's fatal Field He fled; Watch'd by the Genius of this Royal place, And mighty Visions of the Danish Race, HisRefuge then was for a Temple shown: But, He restor'd, 'tis now become a Throne."
"Another very unlikely spot is made use of by as a place to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their nests in the interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that amazing work of antiquity; which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of the upright stones, that they should be tall enough to secure those nests from the annoyance of shepherd boys, who are always idling round that place."
"With regard to their actual course of studies, the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed. Subsidiary to the teachings of this main principle, they hold various lectures and discussions on astronomy, on the extent and geographical distribution of the globe, on the different branches of natural philosophy, and on many problems connected with religion."
"Caesar writes in De Bello Gallico VI, 13: “[The Druids] are concerned with divine worship… sacrifices… ritual… Numerous young men gather round them for the sake of instruction holding them in great honour”; in ch VI, 14 he adds, “In the schools of the Druids they learn by heart a great number of verses, and therefore some persons remain twenty years under training. And they do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in almost all other matters… they make use of Greek letters”."
"Our predecessors, the Druids of Britain, tho' left in the extremest west to the improvement of their own thoughts, yet advanc'd their inquiries, under all disadvantages, to such heights, as should make our moderns asham'd, to wink in the sunshine of learning and religion."
"In the oldest documents now in our possession--the Vedas and the older laws of Manu--we find many magical rites practiced and permitted by the Brahmans. Thibet, Japan and China teach in the present age that which was taught by the oldest Chaldeans. The clergy of these respective countries, prove moreover what they teach, namely: that the practice of moral and physical purity, and of certain austerities, developes the vital soulpower of self-illumination. Affording to man the control over his own immortal spirit, it gives him truly magical powers over the elementary spirits inferior to himself. In the West we find magic of as high an antiquity as in the East. The Druids of Great Britain practised it in the silent crypts of their deep caves; and Pliny devotes many a chapter to the "wisdom" of the leaders of the Celts. The Semothees,--the Druids of the Gauls, expounded the physical as well as the spiritual sciences. They taught the secrets of the universe, the harmonious progress of the heavenly bodies, the formation of the earth, and above all--the immortality of the soul. p. 19"
"Into their sacred groves--natural academies built by the hand of the Invisible Architect--the initiates assembled at the still hour of midnight to learn about what man once was and what he will be. They needed no artificial illumination, nor life-drawing gas, to light up their temples, for the chaste goddess of night beamed her most silvery rays on their oak-crowned heads; and their white-robed sacred bards knew how to converse with the solitary queen of the starry vault. On the dead soil of the long by-gone past stand their sacred oaks, now dried up and stripped of their spiritual meaning by the venomous breath of materialism. But for the student of occult learning, their vegetation is still as verdant and luxuriant, and as full of deep and sacred truths, as at that hour when the arch-druid performed his magical cures, and waving the branch of mistletoe, severed with his golden sickle the green bough from its mother oak-tree. p 20"
"Druids – A sacerdotal caste which flourished in Britain and Gaul. They were initiates who admitted females into their sacred order, and initiated them into the mysteries of their religion. They never entrusted their sacred verses and scriptures to writing, but, like the Brahmans of old, committed them to memory; a feat which, according to the statement of Ceasar, took twenty years to accomplish. Like the Parsis they had no images or statues of their gods. The Celtic religion considered it blasphemy to represent any god, even of a minor character, under a human figure.... The three chief commandments of their religion were:—Obedience to divine laws; concern for the welfare of mankind; suffering with fortitude all the evils of life."
"Amongst classical writers Caesar in the sixth book of his De bello Gallico, is the first who states that the Druids were the religious guides of the people as well as the chief expounders and guardians of the law. As, unlike the Brahmans in India, they were not an hereditary caste, and enjoyed exemption from military service as well as payment of taxes; admission to their order was eagerly sought after by the youth of Gaul. The course of training to which a novice had to submit was protracted, extending over twenty years, — resembling in this particular the system of education still in vogue in India. The office of Arch Druid was elective, extending over a lifetime, and involved supreme authority over all others. Desultory references and brief notices of the learning of the Druids are met with in the writings of Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius, the church fathers Origin, Clement of Alexandria and St. Augustine."
"The Druids had schools in the forests, where youths committed to memory certain maxims in verse, inculcating the worship of the gods, bravery in battle, respect to chastity of women and implicit obedience to Druids, magistrates and parents. These verses sometimes contained an allegorical meaning which was explained under an oath of secrecy to those educated for the higher orders of the priesthood. They were divided into three classes, the Druids proper, who were the sole judges and legislators, presided at the sacrifices and were the instructors of the novitiates. They were dressed in white robes. The second class were the Bards, who accompanied chiefs to battle and sang hymns to the god of war. They had to undergo a novitiate-ship of twenty years, during which they committed to memory the traditionary songs, the exploits and deeds of daring and valor of past chiefs. After passing the customary ordeals and examinations, they were given to drink of the waters of inspiration, which we are inclined to think was the same as the juice of the soma plant amongst the Hindoos; after which, like the Brahmans, they were said to be twice born and were henceforth held in the highest respect and veneration by their countrymen. The color of their garb was green."
"From this outline of Druidic teaching we learn: that in those remote ages, the doctrines of reincarnation and Karma, were understood and grasped with that clearness of apprehension so as to make them facts of the Universe. Its moral teachings were pure and healthy, inculcating chastity in all the relationships of life, the infringement of which was visited with the punishment of death. Druidism throughout its whole career kept itself perfectly pure and un-contaminated from those vices and phallic impurities which have so shamefully degraded most of the great religions of the world ancient and modern."
"That the Druids held in trust secrets of science and mystic lore we know. Persecution by the ignorant and the superstitious slew, and drove into hiding the wise and the understanding, and robbed the lands of the Kelts of music and poesy, of art and grace, save that which was interwoven in the soul of the people and made them what they were."
"The word “ Druid” is derived from, Dru = God (cf. Modern Welsh Duw; Gaelic, Draoi; French, Dieu; Greek, A ; English, Deity), and “Vid” = "knowledge” (cf. Aryan root, vid = wisdom; Latin, video; Sanscrit, vidya; English, vision); in fact it is but another form of the words “Divine Wisdom,” the Brahma-Vidya or THEOSOPHY. From the above it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the Druids were to the Fourth Sub-Race, what the Theosophical Movement is to the Fifth, and that the same great fundamental teachings of life which inspired the Druids are now the ideals by which many try to live as Theosophists."
"Like nearly all schools of the Mysteries, the teachings of the Druids were divided into two distinct sections. The simpler, a moral code, was taught to all the people, while the deeper, esoteric doctrine was given only to initiated priests. To be admitted to the order, a candidate was required to be of good family and of high moral character. No important secrets were entrusted to him until he had been tempted in many ways and his strength of character severely tried."
"The Druids taught the people of Britain and Gaul concerning the immortality of the soul. They believed in transmigration and apparently in reincarnation. They borrowed in one life, promising to pay back in the next. They believed in a purgatorial type of hell where they would be purged of their sins, afterward passing on to the happiness of unity with the gods. The Druids taught that all men would be saved, but that some must return to earth many times to learn the lessons of human life and to overcome the inherent evil of their own natures."
"The Druids considered a chalice of pine essence as a chalice of life."
"The Druids were the Masons of very ancient times ... At the head of the Druids was a woman, who bore the title of Mother of the Druids."
"The Druids had a ritual in which all those who were present had to move around the sacrificial place or altar, exactly in the direction of the sun, whereas the Hierophant himself was moving against the sun, symbolizing his superior knowledge."
"The powerful Celtic social class posed a threat to the Roman Empire before being subsumed by Christianity, but their origins remain shrouded in the past... Despite what little is actually known about ancient Druidism, the practice has seen several revivals in modern times...The earliest detailed accounts of the Druids date back to the first century B.C., but it’s likely that they had established their special role within the ancient communities of what is now Britain, Ireland, and France long before then... The pagan practitioners presented an existential threat to the Romans, who feared Druid power over the Celtic communities that Rome had conquered... The term seems to have been a blanket designation for scholars, philosophers, teachers, and holy men concerned with nature, justice and magic. “Among archaeologists there is currently no consensus over how material evidence relates to the Druids even within the same country,” writes History Today’s Ronald Hutton. “Not a single artifact has been turned up anywhere which experts universally and unequivocally agree to be Druidic.” Then and now, the idea of Druids evokes both magic and mystery."
"To thee belongs the rural reign; Thy cities shall with commerce shine: All thine shall be the subject main, And every shore it circles thine. Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves."
"In this vast empire, on which the sun never sets, and whose bounds nature has not yet ascertained, one great superintending and controuling dominion must exist somewhere; and where can that dominion reside with so much dignity, propriety, and safety, as in the British legislature?"
""If then, we are a part of the British empire, we must be subject to the supreme power of the state, which is vested in the estates of parliament." Here again, we are to be conjured out of our senses by the magic in the words "British empire" and "supreme power of the state." But, however it may sound, I say we are not a part of the British empire, because the British government is not an empire. The governments of France, Spain, &c. are not empires, but monarchies, supposed to be governed by fixed fundamental laws, though not really. The British government is still less entitled to the style of an empire. It is a limited monarchy. If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They defined a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more nor less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend. An empire is a despotism, and an emperor a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy. For, although the will of an absolute monarch is law, it must be registered by parliaments. Even this formality is not necessary in empire."
"When the last two volumes of Veda are published we shall have saved from destruction a work, older than Iliad, older than any other literary document of that noble race of mankind to which the greatest nations in the world’s history have belonged—a race which after receiving from a Semitic race, from the Jews, its best treasure, its religion, the religion of the Old and New Testaments, is now with the English in the van, carrying on slowly but irresistibly the conquest of the world by means of commerce, colonization, education and conversion."
"It has been said that the people of this country are deeply interested in the humanitarian and philanthropic considerations involved in [the Eastern Question]. All must appreciate such feelings. But I am mistaken if there be not a yet deeper sentiment on the part of the people of this country, one with which I cannot doubt your lordships will ever sympathise, and that is—the determination to maintain the Empire of England."
"[I]f our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made."
"We are trustees for the British Empire. We have received that trust with all its strength, all its glory, all its traditions; and the one thing we have to care for is that we pass them untarnished to our successors."
"For southern wind and east wind meet Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, England with bare and bloody feet Climbs the steep road of wide empire."
"In our belief, the great empire of England, which we have inherited from our forefathers, concerns all alike, but it concerns those most who depend most for trade and employment upon the constant prosperity of the country. (Cheers.) I do not believe that England, stripped of India, stripped of its colonies, humbled before Europe, would be a happy England for the working classes. (Cheers.) We have received from the self-denial, the heroic actions of our forefathers a great empire. We mean, if we can, to keep it (cheers), to develop it, to strengthen it, to enrich it, and that not in the interests of a class, but of all, and most of all the industrial classes of this country. (Loud and prolonged cheers.)"
"I hope we may be able sooner or later to federate, to bring together, all these great dependencies of the British Empire into one supreme and Imperial Parliament (cheers), so that they should be all units of one body, that one should feel what the others feel, that all should be equally responsible, that all should have a share in the welfare and sympathize with the welfare of every part. That is what I hope, but there is very little hope for it if you weaken the ties which now bind the central portion of the Empire together. (Cheers.)"
"The business which brings you here to-day is of a peculiar character, due to the very peculiar character of the Empire over which the Queen rules. It yields to none, it is perhaps superior to all in its greatness, in its extent, in the vastness of its population, in the magnificence of its wealth. But it has this peculiarity which separates it from other empires—the want of continuity. The Empire is separated into parts, and distant parts, by large stretches of ocean, and what we are really here to do is to see how far we must acquiesce in the conditions which that separation causes, how far we can obliterate them by agreement and by organization."
"The British Empire is not a thing to love or to be proud of, but a disgrace and a nuisance, as a domination compounded of fraud, injustice and violence to be scorned by all honest men wherever possible."
"[The British Empire is] the greatest secular agency for good now known to mankind."
"The British Empire will come to grief unless it changes its methods for dealing with aboriginal races . . . The day is coming when Africans will speak for themselves. . . The day is breaking, and the despised African, whose only crime is his colour, will yet give an account of himself."
"She stands, a thousand-wintered tree, By countless morns impearled; Her broad roots coil beneath the sea, Her branches sweep the world; Her seeds, by careless winds conveyed, Clothe the remotest strand With forests from her scatterings made, New nations fostered in her shade, And linking land with land."
"O ye by wandering tempest sown ’Neath every alien star, Forget not whence the breath was blown That wafted you afar! For ye are still her ancient seed On younger soil let fall— Children of Britain’s island-breed, To whom the Mother in her need Perchance may one day call."
"I venture to claim two qualifications for the great office which I hold, which to my mind, without making invidious distinctions, is one of the most important that can be held by any Englishman; and those qualifications are that in the first place I believe in the British Empire, and in the second place I believe in the British race. I believe that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever seen."
"God of our fathers, known of old— Lord of our far-flung battle-line— Beneath whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget!"
"I believe in a British Empire, in an Empire which, though it should be its first duty to cultivate friendship with all the nations of the world, should yet, even if alone, be self-sustaining and self-sufficient, able to maintain itself against the competition of all its rivals. And I do not believe in a Little England which shall be separated from all those to whom it would in the natural course look for support and affection, a Little England which would then be dependent absolutely on the mercy of those who envy its present prosperity, and who have shown they are ready to do all in their power to prevent its future union with the British races throughout the world."
"The only serious enemy to the Empire, within or without, is that very Democracy which depends on the Empire for its proper comforts."
"Now I know why the sun never sets on the British Empire. God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark!"
"The British people realise that they are fighting for the hegemony of the Empire. If necessary we shall continue the war single-handed."
"If we are to receive self-government, we shall have to take it. We shall never be granted self-government. Look at the history of the British Empire and the British nation; freedom-loving as it is, it will not be a party to give freedom to a people who will not take it themselves."
"[W]e believe in the British Empire because it stands for liberty; because it has given us all that we have; because it has protected us all our lives; because it now protects us; because we know that without its protection in this war we should long ago have become a German colony; that our lot would have been that of Belgium."
"We are loyal to the Empire first and foremost because we are of the British race."
"It is impossible in words to describe our sense of gratitude and the thrill of pride with which we always think about the way in which the Empire came to our assistance when we risked the life of these islands upon the struggle for liberty in Europe."
"The grand success of the British Empire depends not on its having followed any constitutional precedent of the past but on having met a new situation in history with a creation in law; and as a matter of fact the new constitutional system grew empirically and organically out of the practical necessities of the colonial situation."
"English rule has enabled India still to retain her identity and social type; it has awakened her to herself and has meanwhile, until she became conscious of her strength, guarded her against the flood which would otherwise have submerged and broken her civilisation. It is for her now to recover herself, defend her cultural existence against the alien penetration, preserve her distinct spirit, essential principle and characteristic forms for her own salvation and the total welfare of the human race."
"This man in his own country prayed we know not to what powers. We pray them to reward him for his bravery in ours."
"The B[ritish] E[mpire] is a sisterhood of nations—the greatest in the world. Look at this table: There sits Africa—English and Boer; there sits Canada—French, Scotch & English; there sits Australia, representing many races—even Maoris; there sits India; here sit the representatives of England, Scotland & Wales; all we ask you to do is to take your place in this sisterhood of free nations. It is an invitation, Mr. De Valera: we invite you here."
"We are wasting our Empire. It is the richest Empire in the world...but it is an undeveloped Empire... There is no party that has such interest in developing the Empire as the Liberal Party. The strength and unity of the Empire were due to Liberal ideals. But for Liberalism there would have been no Empire... The British Empire stands in the world for peace, for right, for freedom, for fair play. It is the great fair-play Empire of the world... It ought to be the special task of Liberalism to make this Empire stronger, and stronger, and stronger, because it is the hope of mankind today."
"As far as I can see, it is the only Empire that takes risks for humanity. There are men who fight for the flag, and rightly should do it for their national interest, but this is the one Empire that goes out armed for right, for freedom. It is the interest of Liberalism to make it strong. That I put as one of the chief items of any Liberal policy I would have anything to do with."
"When we speak of Empire, it is in no spirit of flag-wagging...we feel that in this great inheritance of ours, separated as it is by the seas, we have yet one home and one people... [G]reat as the material benefits are, we do not look primarily to them. I think deep down in all our hearts we look to the Empire as the means by which we may hope to see that increase of our race which we believe to be of such inestimable benefit to the world at large; the spread abroad of people to whom freedom and justice are as the breath of their nostrils, of people distinguished, as we would fain hope and believe, above all things, by an abiding sense of duty. If ever the day should come when an appeal to that sense of duty falls on deaf ears among our own kin, that day indeed would be the end of our country and of our Empire, to which you and I have dedicated our very lives."
"Our Empire grew from the adventurous spirit of our fathers... Wherever they went, they carried with them the traditions, the habits, the ideals of their Mother Country... [T]hey never lost that golden thread of the spirit which drew their thoughts back to the land of their birth. Even their children, and their children's children, to whom Great Britain was no more than a name, a vision, spoke of it always as Home. In this sense of kinship the Empire finds its brightest glory and its most essential strength. The Empires of old were created by military conquest and sustained by military domination. They were Empires of subject races governed by a central power. Our Empire is so different from these that we must give the word Empire a new meaning, or use instead of it the title Commonwealth of British Nations... I am sure that none among us can think upon this Commonwealth of British nations, which men and women of our own race have created, without a stirring of our deepest feelings."
"We [Britain and the Dominions] stand on an equality, and if some foreign critics are disposed to say that standing on an equality means that we are bound to separate in a short time my view is precisely the contrary. My view most strongly is that the British Empire is now a more united organism than it has ever been before, that that organism is held together far more effectually by the broad loyalties, by the common feelings and interests—in many cases, of history—and by devotion to great world ideals of peace and freedom. A common interest in loyalty, in freedom, in ideals—that is the bond of Empire. If that is not enough, nothing else is enough."
"As we study [the British Empire's] destiny, we are bound to think of it less as a human achievement than as an instrument of Divine Providence for the promotion of the progress of mankind."
"I know very well how limited and how open to criticism, English freedom is. It is race-bound and it's class-bound. It means freedom for the Englishman, but not for the subject-races of his Empire. If you invite the average Englishman to share his liberties with the inhabitants of India or Kenya, he will reply, "Never," if he is a Tory, and "Not until I consider them worthy" if he is a Liberal."
"He hoped he was not a Jingo, but he still felt that the British were the best Colonial administrators of any government in the world."
"Here in this country, although our political divisions were deep, in time of need we were able to transcend them in the interests of the whole community. Throughout the British Commonwealth and Empire there were immense diversities of race, colour, creed, and degrees of civilization, yet the links that united all together, though often intangible, proved strong as steel in the day of trial. This was because, despite many shortcomings and failures to implement fully the ideals which we held, the British Commonwealth and Empire had stood for freedom and justice, and because we had learnt through long centuries the lesson of how to live together without attempting to exact regimented uniformity."
"...the power of Great Britain is no more. I looked at France. I looked at Britain. And I thought about the Britain that could boast, “The sun never sets on our great Empire.” And I say now she had gone to the level that the sun hardly rises on the British Empire. Because it was based on exploitation. Because the God of the universe eventually takes a stand."
"“Liberty or death” was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English. They didn't care about the odds. Why they faced the wrath of the entire British Empire. And in those days they used to say that the British Empire was so vast and so powerful when the sun would never set on them. This is how big it was, yet these 13 little, scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire “Liberty or death.” And here you have 22 million Afro-American black people today catching more hell than Patrick Henry ever saw."
"The so-called British Empire was a manifest of the world-around misconception of who ran things, and a disclosure of the popular ignorance of the Great Pirates' absolute world-controlling through their local-stooge sovereigns and their prime ministers, as only innocuously and locally modified here and there by the separate sovereignties' internal democratic processes."
"The British colonial servants saw their task as one of efficient, fair public administration, of providing justice, law and order: the Roman imperial virtues. They tended to neglect – as did the Colonial Office itself – the modern importance of science and economics, subjects they understandably found alien and somewhat uncomfortable. Thus, although the British showed a far more tender regard for native culture than other colonial nations, British colonies were often backward in research and technical services, for the staffing of which British education in any case made small provision."
"War tore the guts out of the British empire, weakening it in resources and morale. The first major loss was Ireland."
"I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word "empire"; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised."
"The British Empire was the nearest thing there has ever been to a world government. Yet its mode of operation was a triumph of minimalism."
"In 1615 the British Isles had been an economically unremarkable, politically fractious and strategically second-class entity. Two hundred years later Great Britain had acquired the largest empire the world had ever seen, encompassing forty-three colonies in five continents."
"Today, it is the British Empire rather than the United Nations that still provides the unacknowledged, unspoken standard by which most observers measure a country’s success. If we say that Canada, Australia, and the United States are generally successful countries, we say so because they have followed the British model of liberty and free commerce. If we judge a country like Zimbabwe a failure we do so not because it is governed contrary to the majority of countries in the United Nations and not because it is governed contrary to African traditions but because it is governed contrary to British laws and traditions — even as it maintains a pretense of following them."
"We weren’t taught Shakespeare or Milton in order to understand our own situation—they were taught as the jewels in Queen Victoria’s crown. The point of the colonial enterprise was that it had all these people to control. Our education was about imprinting on us the greatness of England, the idea that the people who could produce these works were of a superior kind of people...I came to understand that I should separate Shakespeare and all of the rest from Disraeli and Horatio Nelson—that the British Empire is one thing and literature another. I’ll take everything except Kipling. Wordsworth would have been very upset to know that his wonderful poems were being used as a weapon of empire."
"There’s one country left in the British empire that needs to liberate itself and have its independence day from its own history, and that’s Britain."
"The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings."
"God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of Himself; and is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto, and upon them."
"Q. What is the chief end of man? A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever."
"Q. What is God? A. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth."
"Q. What is sin? A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God."
"I gazed on the mountains in grandeur majestic, I gazed on the vales—they were fruitful and fair; I gazed with delight on the lakes and the fountains, I gazed on the banner—the eagle was there. "E pluribus unum" exultingly waves, E pluribus unum! what freemen and slaves? The genius of liberty, maiden celestial, Sat nigh that gay banner attempting to smile; Alternately gazing on eagle and fetters, The tears from her eyes trickled down all the while, And she sighed where the banner of liberty waves, o'er traitors, and tyrants, and heart-broken slaves."
"Frequent representations had of late been made to the Lord Mayor, of the alarm excited by a miscreant, who haunted the lanes and lonely places in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, for the purpose of terrifying women and children. For some time these statements were supposed to be greatly exaggerated. However, the matter was put beyond a doubt by the following circumstance. A Mr. Alsop, who residing in Bearbing-lane, a lonely spot between the villages of Bow and Oldford, attended at Lambeth-street office, with his three daughters to state the particulars of an outrageous assault upon one of his daughters, by a fellow who goes by the name of the Suburban ghost, or "spring-heeled Jack." Miss Janes Alsop, one of the young ladies, gave the following evidence. About a quarter to nine o'clock on the preceding night, she heard a violent ringing at the gate in front of the house ; and on going to the door to see what was the matter, she saw a man standing outside ; of whom she inquired what was the matter. The person instantly replied, that he was a policeman ; and said, " For God's sake bring me a light, for we have caught spring-heeled Jack here in the lane." She returned into the house, and brought a candle, and handed it to the person ; who appeared enveloped in a large cloak. The instant she had done so, however, he threw off his outer garment, and applying the lighted candle to his breast, presented a most hideous and frightful appearance, and vomited forth a quantity of blue and white flame from his mouth, and his eyes resembled red balls of fire. From the hasty glance which her fright enabled her to get at his person, she observed that he wore a large helmet ; and his dress, which appeared to fit him very tight, seemed to her,toresemble white oilskin. Without uttering a sentence he darted at her, and catching her partly by her dress and the back part of her neck, placed her head under one of his arms, and commenced tearing her gown with his claws, which she was certain were of some metallic substance. She screamed out as loud as she could for assistance ; and by considerable exertion got away from him, and ran towards the house to get in. Her assailant, however, followed her, and caught her on the steps leading to the hall-door ; when he again used considerable violence, tore her neck and arms with his claws, as well as a quantity of hair from her head : but she was at length rescued from his grasp by one of her sisters. Miss Alsop added, that she had suffered considerably all night from the shock she had sustained ; and was then in extreme pain, both from the injury done to her arm, and the wounds and scratches inflicted by the miscreant on her shoulders and neck, with his claws or hands. This story was fully confirmed by Mr. Alsop and his other daughters. One of the daughters said, that the fellow kept knocking and ringing at the gate after she had dragged er sister away from him, but scampered off when she shouted from an upper window for a policeman. He left his cloak behind him ; which some one else picked up, and ran off with."
"During the 1850’s and 60’s Spring-heeled Jack was also seen all over England, particularly in the Midlands. The Army in 1870 set traps to catch him after scared sentries reported being terrified by a man who sprang on to the roof of their sentry box. Also in 1870, angry townsfolk in Lincoln are reported to have shot at him in the street, but he just laughed and bounded away, leaping over fences, and even small buildings!"
"For a while, as no-one really had any idea who he was, suspicion rested on the eccentric young Marquis of Waterford, but he was never vicious, even though he was considered ‘wild’ by Victorian society, and been branded as the ‘Mad Marquis’. Spring-heeled Jack was last seen in 1904 at Everton in Liverpool, bounding up and down the streets, leaping from cobbles to rooftops and back! He vanished into the darkness when some brave souls tried to corner him and he has not been seen since that day to this! The puzzle remains…who was Spring-heeled Jack?"
"[T]he Revolution of 1688...is the greatest thing done by the English nation. It established the State upon a contract, and set up the doctrine that a breach of contract forfeited the crown... Parliament gave the crown, and gave it under conditions. Parliament became supreme in administration as well as in legislation. The king became its servant on good behaviour, liable to dismissal for himself or his ministers. All this was not restitution, but inversion. Passive obedience had been the law of England. Conditional obedience and the right of resistance became the law. Authority was limited and regulated and controlled. The Whig theory of government was substituted for the Tory theory on the fundamental points of political science. The great achievement is that this was done without bloodshed, without vengeance, without exclusion of entire parties, with so little definiteness in point of doctrine that it could be accepted, and the consequences could be left to work themselves out."
"The Glorious Revolution was not a revolution of the intellect like the French revolution, which inspired every class in society with ideas for or against it. But it made England the ideal of intellectuals on the Continent, and even after 1789 Britain was admired for its civil liberty, legal equality, toleration, moderation, lack of cruelty, even its taste for the odd and eccentric. This is why we should celebrate it. If France has the confidence to honour the ideas of 1789, surely Britain can honour the days when the elementary liberties of the subject against the state were established and dictatorship died."
"The whole bulk of the people hath been brought up by the revolution, and by the present settlement of the crown, to entertain principles which very few of us defended in my younger days. The safety and welfare of the nation are now the first and principal objects of regard. The regard to persons and to families hath been reduced to the second place; and it holds even that but under the direction of the former."
"He felt some concern that this strange thing, called a revolution in France, should be compared with the glorious event, commonly called the revolution in England... In truth, the circumstances of our revolution (as it is called) and that of France, are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of transaction. With us it was the case of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary power—in France, it is the case of an arbitrary monarch, beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his authority. The one was to be resisted, the other was to be managed and directed; but in neither case was the order of the state to be changed, lest government might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected and legalized. With us we got rid of the man, and preserved the constituent parts of the state. There they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and keep the man. What we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a revolution, not made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. In the stable fundamental parts of our constitution we made no revolution; no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy: perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it very considerably. The nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the same privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the magistracy; the same Lords, the same Commons, the same corporations, the same electors."
"Was little done, because a revolution was not made in the constitution? No! Every thing was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with ruin. Accordingly the state flourished. Instead of lying as dead, in a sort of trance, or exposed, as some others, in an epileptic fit, to the pity or derision of the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out her brains against the pavement, Great Britain rose above the standard, even of her former self. An era of a more improved domestic prosperity then commenced, and still continues, not only unimpaired, but growing, under the wasting hand of time. All the energies of the country were awakened. England never presented a firmer countenance, or a more vigorous arm, to all her enemies, and to all her rivals. Europe under her respired and revived. Every where she appeared as the protector, assertor, or avenger of liberty. A war was made and supported against fortune itself. The treaty of Ryswick, which first limited the power of France, was soon after made: the grand alliance very shortly followed, which shook to the foundations the dreadful power which menaced the independence of mankind. The states of Europe lay happy under the shade of a great and free monarchy, which knew how to be great, without endangering its own peace, at home, or the internal or external peace of any of its neighbours."
"The Revolution was made to preserve our antient indisputable laws and liberties and that antient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty... The very idea of the fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror. We wished at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. Upon that body and stock of inheritance we have taken care not to inoculate any cyon alien to the nature of the original plant. All the reformations we have hitherto made have proceeded upon the principle of reverence to antiquity; and I hope, nay, I am persuaded, that all those which possibly may be made hereafter will be carefully formed upon analogical precedent, authority, and example."
"I question, if in all the Histories of Empire, there is one Instance of so bloodless a Revolution, as that in England in 1688, wherein Whigs, Tories, Princes, Prelates, Nobles, Clergy, common People, and a standing Army, were unanimous. To have seen all England of one Mind, is to have liv'd at a very particular Juncture."
"The unhappy party divisions must ever give an honest man a most unfavourable opinion of these times, when the honour and dignity, the safety and tranquility, of the nation, were continually neglected for the little interested views of party; but however this Convention with all its blemishes saved the nation from the iron rod of arbitrary power. Let that palliate all defects, and though the constitution was not so well established as it might have been at this time, though sufficient care was not taken to keep the advantages of our insular situation, nor effectual bars put to Continental influence, let us still remember we stand in debt for our liberty and religion to the success of 1688."
"Let their lordships look to the revolution of 1688, and then he would ask them, if it could have been carried into effect without the combinations of those great men, who restored and secured our religion, our laws, and our liberties, and without such mutual communications among them as would bring them under the description of a sect or party?"
"The Revolution is not to be considered as a mere effort of the nation on a pressing emergency to rescue itself from the violence of a particular monarch; much less as grounded upon the danger of the Anglican church, its emoluments, and dignities, from the bigotry of a hostile religion. It was rather the triumph of those principles which, in the language of the present day, are denominated liberal or constitutional, over those of absolute monarchy, or of monarchy not effectually controlled by stated boundaries. It was the termination of a contest between the regal power and that of parliament, which could not have been brought to so favourable an issue by any other means."
"We have great reason to believe, we shall be every day in a worse condition than we are, and less able to defend ourselves, and therefore we do earnestly wish we might be so happy as to find a remedy before it be too late for us to contribute to our own deliverance... the people are so generally dissatisfied with the present conduct of the government, in relation to their religion, liberties and properties (all which have been greatly invaded) and they are in such expectation of their prospects being daily worse, that your Highness may be assured, there are nineteen parts of twenty of the people throughout the kingdom, who are desirous of a change; and who, we believe, would willingly contribute to it, if they had such a protection to countenance their rising, as would secure them from being destroyed, before they could get to be in a posture able to defend themselves."
"Revolutions customarily involved armed conflict and seismic upheaval. As such, 1688 was a disappointment. At the time little blood was spilled, and the event has always lacked classroom appeal. 'Glory' was ascribed to it by a Whig MP, John Hampden, and was taken up delightedly by liberal historians to imply Whig credit for it, and for all that followed. It would not do to have the subsequent Whig ascendancy credited to a foreign invasion. But if 1688 was not strictly a revolution, in its outcome it brought finality to a revolutionary process. It showed that reforms sought and hesitantly achieved over the sixty years since the Petition of Right were robust. They were given the stamp of permanence. That this stamp required the intervention of a foreign power may well have saved England from another civil war, which Parliament would probably but not certainly would have won. But English history has always been opportunist. What happened was for the best."
"The Revolution of 1689 is therefore the third grand aera in the history of the Constitution of England. The great charter had marked out the limits within which the Royal authority ought to be confined; some outworks were raised in the reign of Edward the First; but it was at the Revolution that the circumvallation was compleated. It was at this aera, that the true principles of civil society were fully established. By the expulsion of a King who had violated his oath, the doctrine of Resistance, that ultimate resource of an oppressed People, was confirmed beyond a doubt. By the exclusion given to a family hereditarily despotic, it was finally determined, that Nations are not the property of Kings. The principles of Passive Obedience, the Divine and indefeasible Right of Kings, in a word, the whole scaffolding of false and superstitious notions by which the Royal authority had till then been supported, fell to the ground, and in the room of it were substituted the more solid and durable foundations of the love of order, and a sense of the necessity of civil government among Mankind."
"One of the most striking consequences of the Revolution was that it led to the firm establishment of the rule of law. In his various political writings John Locke set out to render the arbitrary use of royal power intellectually indefensible. At the same time the Bill of Rights declared against the use of the prerogative as an instrument to suspend or dispense with legislation. This was followed by a clause in the Act of Settlement of 1701 putting an end to the arbitrary dismissal of judges. Since after 1689 the substantial property-owners were, to all intents and purposes, the real law-givers, all this aided them in their drive for power. But incorruptibility is a dangerous thing, and when, in the age of Paine and Blake, ordinary people began to advance political claims, they too found protection under the umbrella of the law. Radicals like Alderman Sawbridge, for example, were able to invoke "Revolution principles" in their protests against the use of the military to quell civil disturbances. Similarly the Bill of Rights Society was able to raise an outcry against arbitrary arrests and the neglect of Habeas Corpus. Again, when men such as John Thelwall and William Hone were brought before the courts by the government, they were triumphantly acquitted, for after 1689 the authorities found it well-nigh impossible to pack juries. The Revolution was not a watershed for the common man. His lot was as hard after the great upheaval as it had been before. Even so when in the fullness of time the voice of the humble came to be raised, the events of 1689 did at least help to oil the wheels of political action. Hence the coming of King William is not entirely without significance in the story of ordinary men and women."
"Now, if ever, we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was made by our forefathers against the House of Stuart. All around us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations. Governments which lately seemed likely to stand during ages have been on a sudden shaken and overthrown... Meanwhile in our island the regular course of government has never been for a day interrupted. The few bad men who longed for license and plunder have not had the courage to confront for one moment the strength of a loyal nation, rallied in firm array round a parental throne. And, if it be asked what has made us to differ from others, the answer is that we never lost what others are wildly and blindly seeking to regain. It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our houses, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange."
"My principles are, as I believe, the Whig principles of the revolution. The main foundation of them is the irresponsibility of the crown, the consequent responsibility of ministers, and the preservation of the power and dignity of parliament as constituted by law and custom. With a heap of modern additions, interpolations, facts and fictions, I have nothing to do."
"I reverence, as much as any one can do, the memory of those great men who effected the Revolution of 1688, and who rescued themselves and us from the thraldom of religious intolerance, and the tyranny of arbitrary power; but I think we are not rendering an appropriate homage to them, when we practice that very intolerance which they successfully resisted, and when we withhold from our fellow-subjects the blessings of that Constitution, which they established with so much courage and wisdom... [T]hat great religious radical, King William...intended to raise a goodly fabric of charity, of concord, and of peace, and upon which his admirers of the present day are endeavouring to build the dungeon of their Protestant Constitution. If the views and intentions of King William had been such as are now imputed to him, instead of blessing his arrival as an epoch of glory and happiness to England, we should have had reason to curse the hour when first he printed his footstep on our strand. But he came not here a bigoted polemic, with religious tracts in one hand, and civil persecution in the other; he came to regenerate and avenge the prostrate and insulted liberties of England; he came with peace and toleration on his lips, and with civil and religious liberty in his heart."
"James II's] actions had alienated enough of his subjects for some curbs to be forced upon him. They might have been reluctant actually to resist him. But they were not prepared to acquiesce any longer in his rule... Englishmen in 1688 were for the most part reluctant revolutionaries. Yet they were even more reluctant to put up much longer with a king who rode roughshod over what they considered to be the rule of law. They therefore welcomed the intervention of the Prince of Orange since he promised to restore that rule."
"The argument of this book has been that England did experience a political revolution in 1688 and 1689. Absolutism gave way to limited monarchy. While this might seem to be nothing more than a reassertion of the classic Whig case, however, there are several major qualifications to be made to that interpretation. There was nothing unconstitutional about the bid for absolutism under the later Stuarts. Nor was it doomed to failure. Above all it is too subjective to load the change with value judgements, deploring absolutism and approving limited monarchy."
"The English tradition of liberty...grew over the centuries: its most marked features are continuity, respect for law and a sense of balance, as demonstrated by the Glorious Revolution of 1688."
"To which Ireton and Cromwell replied with arguments that seem like prescient apologetics for the compromise of 1688. The common solider had fought for three things: the limitation of the prerogative of the Crown to infringe his personal rights and liberty of conscience: the right to be governed by representatives, even though he had no part in choosing them: and the “freedom of trading to get money, to get estates by”—and of entering upon political rights in this way. On such terms, “Liberty may be had and property not be destroyed.” For 100 years after 1688 this compromise—the oligarchy of landed and commercial property—remained unchallenged, although with a thickening texture of corruption, purchase, and interest whose complexities have been lovingly chronicled by Sir Lewis Namier and his school. The Leveller challenge was altogether dispersed—although the spectre of a Leveller revival was often conjured up, as the Scylla to the Charybdis of Papists and Jacobites between which the good ship Constitution must steer her course. But until the last quarter of the 18th century the temperate republican and libertarian impulses of the “Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthsman” seem to be transfixed within the limits of Ireton’s definition."
"The movement towards philanthropy instead of persecution, as an outlet for religious enthusiasm, was one of the characteristic fruits of the Revolution, as also was the improvement in public justice, both political and criminal. Because the Revolution Settlement was not a party victory, but an agreed compromise between Whig and Tory, Church and Dissent, it made humanity, moderation and co-operation the main current of affairs in the Eighteenth Century."
"The ultimate view that we take of the Revolution of 1688 must be determined by our preference either for royal absolutism or for parliamentary government. James II forced England to choose once for all between these two."
"If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground."
"Historians usually focus their attention on the past of countries that still exist, writing hundreds and thousands of books on British history, French history, German history, Russian history, American history, Chinese history, Indian history, Brazilian history or whatever. Whether consciously or not, they are seeking the roots of the present, thereby putting themselves in danger of reading history backwards. As soon as great powers arise, whether the United States in the twentieth century or China in the twenty-first, the call goes out for offerings on American History or Chinese History, and siren voices sing that today’s important countries are also those whose past is most deserving of examination, that a more comprehensive spectrum of historical knowledge can be safely ignored."
"Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."
"The Britons, a race entirely cut off from the rest of the world."
"Of all the Britons the inhabitants of Kent, an entirely maritime district, are by far the most civilised, differing but little from the Gallic manner of life. Of the inlanders most do not sow corn, but live on milk and flesh and clothe themselves in skins. All the Britons, indeed, dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and makes their appearance in battle more terrible. They wear long hair, and shave every part of the body save the head and the upper lip. Groups of ten or twelve men have wives together in common, and particularly brothers along with brothers, and fathers with sons; but the children born of the unions are reckoned to belong to the particular house to which the maiden was first conducted."
"Here at the world's end, on its last inch of liberty, we have lived unmolested to this day, in this sequestered nook of story; for the unknown is ever magnified. But to-day the uttermost parts of Britain are laid bare; there are no other tribes to come; nothing but sea and cliffs and these more deadly Romans."
"There are two principal races of the Britons, the Caledonians and the Maeatae, and the names of the others have been merged in these two. The Maeatae live next to the cross-wall which cuts the island in half, and the Caledonians are beyond them. Both tribes inhabit wild and waterless mountains and desolate and swampy plains, and possess neither walls, cities, nor tilled fields, but live on their flocks, wild game, and certain fruits; for they do not touch the fish which are there found in immense and inexhaustible quantities. They dwell in tents, naked and unshod, possess their women in common, and in common rear all the offspring. Their form of rule is democratic for the most part, and they are very fond of plundering; consequently they choose their boldest men as rulers. They go into battle in chariots, and have small, swift horses; there are also foot-soldiers, very swift in running and very firm in standing their ground. For arms they have a shield and a short spear, with a bronze apple attached to the end of the spear-shaft, so that when it is shaken it may clash and terrify the enemy; and they also have daggers. They can endure hunger and cold and any kind of hardship; for they plunge into the swamps and exist there for many days with only their heads above water, and in the forests they support themselves upon bark and roots, and for all emergencies they prepare a certain kind of food, the eating of a small portion of which, the size of a bean, prevents them from feeling either hunger or thirst."
"For as great part of the Island is frequently overflow'd by the Tides, these constant Inundations make the Country full of Lakes and Marshes. In these the Barbarians swim, or wade through them up to their Middle, regardless of Mud or Dirt, as they always go almost naked: For they are ignorant of the Use of Clothes, and only cover their Necks and Bellies with fine Plates of Iron; which they esteem as an Ornament and Sign of Wealth, and are as proud of it, as other Barbarians are of Gold. They likewise dye their Skins with the Pictures of various kinds of Animals; which is one principal Reason for their wearing no Clothes, because they are loth to hide the fine Paintings on their Bodies. But they are a very warlike and fierce People; and arm only with a narrow Shield and Spear, and a Sword hanging by their naked Bodies; unacquainted with the Use of Habergeons and Helmets, which they think would be an Obstruction to their wading through the Ponds and Marshes of their Country: Which perpetually sending up thick gross Vapours, condense the Air and make it always foggy."
"When he pushed through the forest that lined the Strand, With paint on his face and a club in his hand, He was death to feather and fin and fur. He trapped my beavers at Westminster. He netted my salmon, he hunted my deer, He killed my heron off Lambeth Pier. He fought his neighbour with axes and swords, Flint or bronze, at my upper fords, While down at Greenwich, for slaves and tin, The tall Phoenician ships stole in, And North Sea war-boats, painted and gay, Flashed like dragon-flies, Erith way; And Norseman and Negro and Gaul and Greek Drank with the Britons in Barking Creek."
"But the Roman came with a heavy hand, And bridged and roaded and ruled the land, And the Roman left and the Danes blew in— And that's where your history-books begin!"
"Then, ’twas before my time, the Roman At yonder heaving hill would stare. The blood that warms an English yeoman, The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.The gale, it plies the saplings double, It blows so hard, ’twill soon be gone: To-day the Roman and his trouble Are ashes under Uricon."