"TURGOT...I present today one of the three greatest statesmen who fought unreason in France between the close of the Middle Ages and the outbreak of the French Revolution—Louis XI and Richelieu being the two other. And not only this: were you to count the greatest men of the modern world upon your fingers, he would be of the number—a great thinker, writer, administrator, philanthropist, statesman, and above all, a great character and a great man. And yet, judged by ordinary standards, a failure. For he was thrown out of his culminating position, as Comptroller-General of France, after serving but twenty months, and then lived only long enough to see every leading measure to which he had devoted his life deliberately and malignantly undone; the flagrant abuses which he had abolished restored, apparently forever; the highways to national prosperity, peace, and influence, which he had opened, destroyed; and his country put under full headway toward the greatest catastrophe the modern world has seen."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Activists from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesUnited States Ambassadors to Russia and the Soviet UnionUnited States Ambassadors to Prussia and Germany
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 165
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andrew_Dickson_White
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Andrew Dickson White
Andrew Dickson White (November 7, 1832 – November 4, 1918) was an American diplomat, author, and educator who was the co-founder and first president of Cornell University.
32 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Andrew Dickson White →
Related Quotes
"My early years abroad were spent mainly upon the European Continent, and public duties since have led me to make prol…"
"Carlyle uttered a pregnant truth when he said that the history of any country is in the biographies of the men who ma…"
"While I have given references which will enable historical students to verify my statements and follow them further, …"
"A thoughtful historian tells us that, between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, Italy produced three great …"
"He [Paolo Sarpi] was one of the two foremost Italian statesmen since the Middle Ages, the other being Cavour."
"His [Sarpi's] career soon revealed another cause of his return; he evidently felt the same impulse which stirred his …"
"Of all tyrannies of unreason in the modern world, one holds a supremely evil preeminence. It covered the period from …"
"Into the very midst of all this welter of evil, at a point in time to all appearance hopeless, at a point in space ap…"
"He [Grotius] avoided another danger as serious as his precocity had been. He steered clear of the quicksands of usele…"
"My purpose in writing these essays has been to acquaint men who are interested in the bearings of modern history on p…"