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.