The King [Charles II] after the Restoration accused the poet, Edmund Waller, of having made finer verses in praise of Oliver Cromw...ell than of himself; to which he agreed, saying, that Fiction was the soul of Poetry.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"A man," said Oliver Cromwell, "never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going." Dreams and drunkenness, the use of ...opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rooted... like oak-trees to the centre, round which all arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres; but any particle may suddenly become the centre of the movement, and compel the system to gyrate round it, as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato, or Paul, does forever.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have seen in this revolution a circular motion of the sovereign power through two usurpers, father and son, to the late King to ...this his son. For ... it moved from King Charles I to the Long Parliament; from thence to the Rump; from the Rump to Oliver Cromwell; and then back again from Richard Cromwell to the Rump; then to the Long Parliament; and thence to King Charles, where long may it remain.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition, By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,... The image of his maker, hope to win by it?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for the most part, see nothing at all,--the Puritans. It would be in v...ain to kill him. He died lately in the time of Cromwell, but he reappeared here. Why should he not? Some of the Puritan stock are said to have come over and settled in New England. They were a class that did something else than celebrate their forefathers' day, and eat parched corn in remembrance of that time. They were neither Democrats nor Republicans, but men of simple habits, straightforward, prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who did not fear God, not making many compromises, nor seeking after available candidates.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He was not in the least a rhetorician, was not talking to Buncombe or his constituents anywhere, had no need to invent anything bu...t to tell the simple truth, and communicate his own resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and eloquence in Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It was like the speeches of Cromwell compared with those of an ordinary king.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What journeyings on foot and on horseback through the wilderness, to preach the gospel to these minks and muskrats! who first, no ...doubt, listened with their red ears out of a natural hospitality and courtesy, and afterward from curiosity or even interest, till at length there "were praying Indians," and, as the General Court wrote to Cromwell, the "work is brought to this perfection that some of the Indians themselves can pray and prophesy in a comfortable manner."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) moved from a legitimate to a charismatic role, reversing the course followed by Washington. Yet there ...were surface similarities in their careers. Both led military rebellions against English monarchs--Cromwell against Charles I, Washington against George III. Each took local militia--the "train bands" of Cromwell, the colonial levies of Washington--and forged professional armies on a national scale. Each infused a new ethos in his troops--a religious spirit in Cromwell's case, a post-colonial American identity in Washington's.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »