"Let me endeavour, very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization vanished from view. They represented everywhere government by force as opposed to government by law. β Yet a government by force can not be maintained without the aid of an intellectual element. β Hence there grew up, what has been rare in the history of the world, a kind of tolerance in the midst of cruelty, tyranny and rapine. Much of Christian life was contemptuously left alone and a race of Greeks was attracted to Constantinople which has all along made up, in some degree, the deficiencies of Turkish Islam in the element of mind!"
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandTheologians from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomNon-fiction authors from England
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William Ewart Gladstone
1868 β 1874
William Ewart Gladstone (29 December 1809 β 19 May 1898) was a British Liberal politician and Prime Minister (1868β1874, 1880β1885, 1886 and 1892β1894). He was a notable political reformer, known for his populist speeches, and was for many years the main political rival of Benjamin Disraeli.
298 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by William Ewart Gladstone β
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