William H. Prescott famous quotes

Self-interest, be it enlightened, works indirectly for the public good.
-- William H. Prescott

#Self #Enlightened #Interest

Architecture is, to a certain extent, a sensual gratification. It addresses itself to the eye, and affords the best scope for the parade of barbaric pomp and splendour. It is the form in which the revenues of a semi-civilized people are most likely to be lavished. The most gaudy and ostentatious specimens of it, and sometimes the most stupendous, have been reared by such hands. It is one of the first steps in the great march of civilization.
-- William H. Prescott

#Eye #Hands #Civilization

The history of literature is the history of the human mind.
-- William H. Prescott

#Mind #Literature #Humans

Where there is no free agency, there can be no morality. Where there is no temptation, there can be little claim to virtue. Where the routine is rigorously proscribed by law, the law, and not the man, must have the credit of the conduct.
-- William H. Prescott

#Men #Law #Agency

The triumphs of the warrior are bounded by the narrow theatre of his own age; but those of a Scott or a Shakspeare will be renewed with greater and greater lustre in ages yet unborn, when the victorious chieftain shall be forgotten, or shall live only in the song of the minstrel and the page of the chronicler.
-- William H. Prescott

#Song #Warrior #Age

The history of literature is the history of the human mind. It is, as compared with other histories, the intellectual as distinguished from the material, the informing spirit as compared with the outward and visible.
-- William H. Prescott

#Mind #Intellectual #Literature

No man is quite so much a hero in the dark as in broad daylight, in solitude as in society, in the gloom of the churchyard as in the blaze of the drawing-room. The season and the place may be such as to oppress the stoutest heart with a mysterious awe, which, if not fear, is near akin to it.
-- William H. Prescott

#Hero #Heart #Dark

I have a dreadful fear that the more you try to prevent revealing the self, the more you do.

The guys who stick around are the smartest guys and the guys who are the most self-driven. You have to have drive. The coaches can only take you so far. You have to want to learn and work.

An ordinary man seeks freedom through enlightenment. An enlightened man expresses freedom through being ordinary.

The condition of an enlightened mind is a surrendered heart.

The social and industrial structure of America is founded upon an enlightened citizenship.

When a poet digs himself into a hole, he doesn't climb out. He digs deeper, enjoys the scenery, and comes out the other side enlightened.

The ignorant ever shun and dread the gifted and enlightened.

He who becomes a Muslim does so in his own interest.

I'm curious about everything--even things that don't interest me.

Jarring interests of themselves create the according music of a well-mixed state.