John Lothrop Motley

John Lothrop Motley

John Lothrop Motley (April 15, 1814 – May 29, 1877) was an American historian, novelist and diplomat.

Quotes

Local self-government…is the life-blood of liberty.
- The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856; New York: Harper, 1861) vol. 3, part 6, ch. 1, p. 416.

As long as he lived, he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the street.
- The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856; New York: Harper, 1861) vol. 3, part 6, ch. 7, p. 627.
- Of William the Silent. In a footnote Motley cites the original of his last phrase in an official report made by the Greffier Corneille Aertsens: "dont par toute la ville l'on est en si grand duil tellement que les petits enfans en pleurent par les rues."

Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.
- Quoted from Motley's conversation by his friend Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1858), ch. 6, p. 143.

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