It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the rabid hatred of England which animates the exiled Irishmen who direct almost all the Northern newspapers, will so excite the masses as to make it impossible for Lincoln and Seward to grant our demands; and we must therefore look forward to war as the probable result.
--
Letter to John Russell (6 December 1861)Henry Temple
Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.
Roger Bacon
From the moment when he took command of the army, Washington was, indeed, "first in the hearts of his countrymen." And the student of our history cannot help remarking how providential it was that, at the outset of this struggle, Washington should come to the front. Eighty-Six years later, at the beginning of the rebellion, there was no accepted chief. Lincoln was doubted by the North and, and the army had no true leader. By a slow process Lincoln's commanding strength became known; by an equally tedious sifting of the generals the qualities of Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Meade were discovered. Only the tremendous resources of the North could have withstood the strain of such a delay. Had the same process been necessary at the outset of the Revolution, the colonies could have scarcely maintained the struggle. Had not Washington been at hand, accepted by the Congress and admired by the army, the virtual leader of both, the chances of success would have been slight. But he was Lincoln and Grant in one. Time and time again, through the long years, it was Washington alone who brought victory from defeat. Without him, the colonies might have won their independence as the result of an almost interminable guerilla warfare; but with him the fight was definite, glorious, and-for the infant republic, mercifully short.
George Washington
O just ones, hear me! You cannot condemn this man, monkey or parrot for saying that the moon is the world he comes from. If he is a man, all men are free. Is he then not free to imagine what he wants, even if he does not come from the moon? Can you force him to have only your visions? Impossible! You may make him say that he believes that the moon is not a world, but still he will not believe it. To believe something, one must imagine that it is more probable than not. Unless you show him what is probable or he realizes it himself, he may tell you that he believes and yet he will not believe.
Cyrano de Bergerac
Everything that has been said, and every conclusion that has been tentatively put forward, is quite frankly speculative and uncertain. We have tried to discuss whether present-day science has anything to say on certain difficult questions, which are perhaps set for ever beyond the reach of human understanding. We cannot claim to have discerned more than a very faint glimmer of light at the best; perhaps it was wholly illusory, for certainly we had to strain our eyes very hard to see anything at all. So that our main contention can hardly be that the science of to-day has a pronouncement to make, perhaps it ought rather to be that science should leave off making pronouncements: the river of knowledge has too often turned back on itself.
James Jeans
Lincoln: A politician who enjoyed the theatre and died because of its convenient darknesses. A celebrated make of car. A town in Lincolnshire, England. A certain colour green.
Peter Greenaway
Temple, Henry, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Temple, Shirley
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