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The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations.

William Edward Hartpole Lecky

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William Edward Hartpole Lecky
History
Perfectly
Three
Slavery
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Pages
Inglorious
England
Comprised
Among
Crusade
Probably
Crusades
Four
Regarded
Nations
Virtuous

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Fierce invectives against women form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the Church fathers.
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The animal world being altogether external to the scheme of redemption, was regarded as beyond the range of duty, and the belief that we have any kind of obligation to its members has never been inculcated - has never, I believe, been even admitted - by Catholic theologians.
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There are some poisons which, before they kill men, allay pain and diffuse a soothing sensation through the frame. We may recognize the hour of enjoyment they procure, but we must not separate it from the price at which it was purchased.
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One of the most important lessons that experience teaches is that, on the whole, success depends more upon character than upon either intellect or fortune.
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There are times in the lives of most of us, when we would have given all the world to be as we were but yesterday, though that yesterday had passed over us unappreciated and unenjoyed.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
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The Augustinian doctrine of the damnation of unbaptized infants and the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation . . . surpass in atrocity any tenets that have ever been admitted into any pagan creed.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
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The simple record of these three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the discourses of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.
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All history shows that, in exact proportion as nations advance in civilisation, the accounts of miracles taking place among them become rarer and rarer, until at last they entirely cease.
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Terror is everywhere the beginning of religion.
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There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Caesars but there has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
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In proportion to its power, Protestantism has been as persecuting as Catholicism.
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The doctrine of a material hell in its effect was to chill and deaden the sympathies, predispose men to inflict suffering, and to retard the march of civilization.
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Abortion... was probably regarded by the average Roman of the later days of Paganism much as Englishmen in the last century regarded convivial excesses, as certainly wrong, but so venial as scarcely to deserve censure.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
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When the Church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated and, in the course of a few years, restrictive laws were enacted, both against the Jews and against the heretics.
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Passions weaken, but habits strengthen, with age, and it is the great task of youth to set the current of habit and to form the tastes which are most productive of happiness in life.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky
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Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which the bark of human happiness is most often wrecked.
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I venture to maintain that there are multitudes to whom the necessity of discharging the duties of a butcher would be so inexpressibly painful and revolting, that if they could obtain a flesh diet on no other condition, they would relinquish it forever.
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There is no possible line of conduct which has at some time and place been condemned, and which has not at some other time and place been enjoined as a duty.
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Physical science has taught us to associate Deity with the normal rather than with the abnormal.
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Almost all Europe, for many centuries, was inundated with blood, which was shed at the direct instigation or with the full approval of the ecclesiastical authorities.
William Edward Hartpole Lecky