Goldwin Smith (13 August 1823 – 7 June 1910) was a British historian and journalist, active in the United Kingdom and Canada. Read full biography of Goldwin Smith →
The Roman legions were formed in the first instance of citizen soldiers, who yet had been made to submit to a rigid discipline, and to feel that in... →
It is evident that in the period designated as that of the kings, when Rome commenced her career of conquest, she was, for that time and country, a... →
Never had there been such an attempt to make conquest the servant of civilization. About keeping India there is no question. England has a real duty... →
Whatever things may have been in their origin, they are what they are, both in themselves and in regard to their indications respecting other beings... →
The novelist must ground his work in faithful study of human nature.
America is supposed to be given over to ugliness. There are a good many ugly things there and the ugliest are the most pretentious.
The insular arrogance of the English character is a commonplace joke.
There are the manufacturing multitudes of England; they must have work, and find markets for their work; if machines and the Black Country are ugly... →
Art is expression, and to have high expression you must have something high to express.
I heard Thackeray thank Heaven for the purity of Dickens. I thanked Heaven for the purity of a greater than Dickens - Thackeray himself.
The materials of the novelist must be real; they must be gathered from the field of humanity by his actual observation.
As to London we must console ourselves with the thought that if life outside is less poetic than it was in the days of old, inwardly its poetry is... →
But if anyone supposes that there was no commercial fraud in the Middle Ages, let him study the commercial legislation of England for that period... →