Quotes by Goldwin Smith

Above all nations is humanity. (Goldwin Smith)

America is supposed to be given over to ugliness. There are a good many ugly things there and the ugliest are the most pretentious. (Goldwin Smith)

Art is expression, and to have high expression you must have something high to express. (Goldwin Smith)

As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old, inwardly its poetry is much deeper. (Goldwin Smith)

But if anyone supposes that there was no commercial fraud in the Middle Ages, let him study the commercial legislation of England for that period, and his mind will be satisfied, if he has a mind to be satisfied and not only a fancy to run away with him. (Goldwin Smith)

Closely approaching Scotland, the northern coast of Ireland in course of time invited Scotch immigration, which formed as it were a Presbyterian Pale. (Goldwin Smith)

I heard Thackeray thank Heaven for the purity of Dickens. I thanked Heaven for the purity of a greater than Dickens - Thackeray himself. (Goldwin Smith)

If it were a real effort to live in the Middle Ages, your life would be one perpetual prevarication. (Goldwin Smith)

Never had there been such an attempt to make conquest the servant of civilization. About keeping India there is no question. England has a real duty there. (Goldwin Smith)

Of all the lines of division in Great Britain, the most important politically has been that which is least clearly traced by the hand of nature. (Goldwin Smith)