Welcome to Litsy!

Not since Gibbon could such works of history exist. This first volumn I own two of; first because I own the set and second so I can let others borrow it.

Men look to love and life for everything; they receive a little less than that; they imagine that they have received nothing: these are the three stages of the pessimist.

There are not many things finer in our murderous species than this noble curiosity, this restless and reckless passion to understand.

NOTHING should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and inadequacy of his acquaintance with India. Here is a vast peninsula of nearly 2 million square miles; 2/3 as large as the U.S., and 20 times the size of its master, Great Britain; 320,000,000 souls, more than in all N. and S. America combined, or 1/5 the population of the earth; an impressive continuity of development and civilization from Mohenjo-daro, 2900 B.C. or earlier..

[N]o language has ever had a word for a virgin man.

The institutions, conventions, customs and laws that make up the complex structure of a society are the work of a hundred centuries and a billion minds; and one mind must not expect to comprehend them in one lifetime, much less in twenty years.

A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean. At its cradle religion stands, and philosophy accompanies it to the grave.
In the beginning of all cultures a religious faith conceals the nature of things, and gives men courage to bear hardship patiently; at every step the gods are with them, and will not let them perish, until they do. Even then a firm faith will explain it was the sins of the people that turned their gods to an avenging wrath