As cited in Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerland, 1484-1531 by Samuel Macauley Jackson, John Martin Vincent, Frank Hugh Foster, p.148-149
Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 2, Verse 6
1860s, Reply to an Emancipation Memorial (1862)
Context: What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, especially as we are now situated? I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet! Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? Is there a single court, or magistrate, or individual that would be influenced by it there! And what reason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon the slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved, and which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused a single slave to come over to us. And suppose they could be induced by a proclamation of freedom from me to throw themselves upon us, what should we do with them? How can we feed and care for such a multitude?
“Nor do I know what is become
Of him, more than the Pope of Rome.”
Canto III, line 263
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Dated 1498 or earlier. Quoted in Sarah Bradford, Cesare Borgia / His Life and Times (1976, George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Limited. London. Reprinted 1981. ISBN 0-297-77124-8), p. 72
As quoted in Sex Lives of the Popes (1996) by Nigel Cawthorne, p. 219
Source: Baudolino (2000), Chapter 3, "Baudolino explains to Niketas what he wrote as a boy"
Ni cheffir eithr o'i weithred
Aberth Crist I borthi cred.
Bywyd ni chaiff, ni beiwn,
Pab nac ymherawdr heb hwn,
Na brenin naelwin hoywlyw,
Dien ei bwyll, na dyn byw.
Source: Y Llafurwr (The Labourer), Line 31.
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Context: There are few with whom I can communicate so freely as with Pope. But Pope cannot bear every truth. He has a timidity which hinders the full exertion of his faculties, almost as effectually as bigotry cramps those of the general herd of mankind. But whoever is a genuine follower of truth keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader. And, my Lord, if it may be properly considered, it were infinitely better to remain possessed by the whole legion of vulgar mistakes, than to reject some, and, at the same time, to retain a fondness for others altogether as absurd and irrational. The first has at least a consistency, that makes a man, however erroneously, uniform at least; but the latter way of proceeding is such an inconsistent chimera and jumble of philosophy and vulgar prejudice, that hardly anything more ridiculous can be conceived.
