摘記集

1. Few things in human life are either entirely good or entirely bad. Few things are either black or white. It is the duty of the honest chronicler to give a true account of all the good and bad sides of every historical event. It is very difficult to do this because we all have our personal likes and dislikes. But we ought to try and be as fair as we can be, and must not allow our prejudices to influence us too much.(《宗教改革》)
2. Since the church had the power to forgive the sins of those who truly repented before they died, the church also had the right to shorten, through its intercession with the Saints, the time during which the soul must be purified in the shadowy realms of Purgatory. (《宗教改革》)
3. The universal spiritual empire of the Popes came to a sudden end and the whole Western Europe was turned into a battle-field, where Protestants and Catholics killed each other for the greater glory of certain theological doctrines which are as incomprehensible to the present generation as the mysterious inscriptions of the ancient Etruscans. (《宗教改革》)
4. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the age of religious controversy.（宗教戰爭）
5. The great reform movement of the Protestants had been followed by a thoroughgoing reform within the bosom of the Church.Those popes who had been merely amateur humanists and dealers in Roman and Greek antiquities, disappeared from the scene and their place was taken by serious men who spent twenty hours a day administering those holy duties which had been placed in their hands.（《宗教戰爭》）
6. For tolerance (and please remember this when you grow older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own so-called ``modern world'' are apt to be tolerant only upon such matters as do not interest them very much.（《宗教戰爭》）
7. In the year 1572 (the same year that the French Protestant leaders were all killed during the terrible night of Saint Bartholomew), he attacked a number of Dutch cities and massacred the inhabitants as an example for the others.（《宗教戰爭》）
8. You will remember that the Pope had divided the world into two equal shares, one of which had been given to the Spaniards and the other to the Portuguese.（《宗教戰爭》）
9. The old Russian costumes were abolished by Imperial decree, and policemen, armed with scissors, watching all the country roads, changed the long-haired Russian moujiks suddenly into a pleasing imitation of smooth-shaven west-Europeans.（《俄国与瑞典之争》）
10. In practice, the Mercantile system worked out as follows: To get the largest surplus of precious metals a country must have a favourable balance of export trade.（《重商主義》）
As a result of this creed, the economic program of almost every seventeenth century state was as follows: 1.Try to get possession of as many precious metals as you can. 2.Encourage foreign trade in preference to domestic trade. 3.Encourage those industries which change raw materials into exportable finished products. 4.Encourage a large population, for you will need workmen for your factories and an agricultural community does not raise enough workmen. 5.Let the State watch this process and interfere whenever it is necessary to do so.
11. Here I am sitting at a comfortable table loaded heavily with books, with one eye on my typewriter and the other on Licorice the cat, who has a great fondness for carbon paper, and I am telling you that the Emperor Napoleon was a most contemptible person.
But should I happen to look out of the window, down upon Seventh Avenue, and should the endless procession of trucks and carts come to a sudden halt, and should I hear the sound of the heavy drums and see the little man on his white horse in his old and much-worn green uniform, then I don't know, but I am afraid that I would leave my books and the kitten and my home and everything else to follow him wherever he cared to lead.（《拿破仑》）
12. '' Try to discover the hidden motives behind every action and then you will understand the world around you much better and you will have a greater chance to help others, which (when all is said and done) is the only truly satisfactory way of living.（《神圣同盟》）
13. The Holy Alliance was the joint labour of an unfortunate man who had suffered a terrible mental shock and who was trying to pacify his much-disturbed soul, and of an ambitious woman who after a wasted life had lost her beauty and her attraction and who satisfied her vanity and her desire for notoriety by assuming the role of self-appointed Messiah of a new and strange creed.（《神圣同盟》）
14. The period between the year 1815 and the year 1860 was the great era of the political spy. 
It was not the first time that an attempt had been made to set the clock of history back.（《强大的反动势力》）
15. The Congress of Vienna was a gathering of men who had just passed through a great revolution and through twenty years of terrible and almost continuous warfare. They came together for the purpose of giving Europe that "peace and stability" which they thought that the people needed and wanted.（《民族独立》）
16. The greatest glory of England does not lie in her vast colonial possessions, in her wealth or her navy, but in the quiet heroism and independence of her average citizen.
The Englishman obeys the law because he knows that respect for the rights of others marks the difference between a dog-kennel and civilised society.（《民族独立》）
17. The people of western Europe and Russia who enjoyed no freedom at home consoled themselves by fighting an imaginary war of liberty on behalf of the oppressed Greeks.（《民族独立》）
18. During the crusades, the burghers of the cities had been able to gather riches from the reviving trade between the east and the west, and they had been serious rivals of the lords and the knights.（《社会革命》）
19. But the great migrations of the fourth century had destroyed the classical world of the Mediterranean, and the Christian Church, which was more interested in the life of the soul than in the life of the body, had regarded science as a manifestation of that human arrogance which wanted to pry into divine affairs which belonged to the realm of Almighty God, and which therefore was closely related to the seven deadly sins.（《科学的时代》）
20. This method of painting upon ``fresh plaster'' (which was generally called ``fresco'' or ``fresh'' painting) was very popular for many centuries.《《艺术》
21. And as art invariably follows the full dinner-pail, the artists now began to work for these worldly employers and painted pictures for kings, for grand-dukes and for rich bankers.（《艺术》）
22. And it takes a great deal of training on the part of the public to appreciate the best in painting and writing and sculpture.But almost any one, not entirely tone-deaf, can follow a tune and almost everybody can get enjoyment out of some sort of music.（《艺术》）
23. People begin to understand that Rembrandt and Beethoven and Rodin are the true prophets and leaders of their race and that a world without art and happiness resembles a nursery without laughter.（《艺术》）