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The difficulty of determining whether a man is or is not good has now become a commonplace of moralists and satirists. It is almost impossible to discover any test which is satisfactory, and the test which is actually applied by society is known to be unsatisfactory in the extreme.

— John Robert Seeley Ecce Homo (1866)

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More quotes by John Robert Seeley

Property can exist only under the guardianship of the State.

The Expansion of England (1883)

The chief forces which hold a community together and cause it to constitute one State are three, common nationality, common religion, and common interest.

The Expansion of England (1883)

No heart is pure that is not passionate; no virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic. And such an enthusiastic virtue Christ was to introduce.

Ecce Homo (1866)

We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.

The Expansion of England (1883)

No man saw the building of the new Jerusalem, the workmen crowded together, the unfinished walls and unpaved streets; no man heard the clink of trowel and pickaxe; it descended out of heaven from God.

Ecce Homo (1866)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Robert Seeley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.