"The truth is that all these men exemplify a triumph of will-power: that is what enabled them to succeed. The strain made some of them harsh — Grenville was harsh, and Bligh of the Bounty. Perhaps Drake too — as certainly he was in his execution of Captain Doughty in South America, before breaking into the Pacific. Still you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. It is a mistake to be too soft; one can't expect to achieve anything without grit. That they all had."
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Historians from EnglandPoets from EnglandUniversity of Oxford facultyBiographers from EnglandUniversity of Oxford alumni
Original Language: English
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'The Spirit of Adventure: The British Interpretation', broadcast to schools (October 1940), in The English Spirit: Essays in History and Literature (1944), p. 56
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A._L._Rowse
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A. L. Rowse
(4 December 1903 – 3 October 1997) was a British historian and author of books about England's Elizabethan era.
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