"After long generations of trouble, persecution and hatred, England had at last won through to a period of domestic peace and individual freedom. It was not a period of avowed idealism; it was not a period of legislative reform. But neither idealism nor reform is the whole of life for men or nations. The vigour and initiative of Englishmen, at home and overseas, in all branches of human effort and intellect, were the admiration of Eighteenth Century Europe. The greatness of England in the Hanoverian epoch was made by men acting freely in a free community, with little help indeed from Church or State, but with no hindrance. The great art of letting your neighbour alone, even if he thinks differently from you, was learnt by Englishmen under Walpole, at a time when the lesson was still a strange one elsewhere. Some European countries have not learnt it to this day or are rapidly unlearning it again."
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Historians from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge alumniUniversity of Cambridge facultyAutobiographers from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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pp. 319-320
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/G._M._Trevelyan
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G. M. Trevelyan
George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was an English historian and academic.
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