# Reading > Who Said That? >  Looking for two quotations

## AuntShecky

What's-his-name (my long-suffering spouse) maintains that you can find everything you want online. I thoroughly disagree! All afternoon I searched in vain for the following:

--a line from Edward Gibbon in which he comments on the very brief period of the Roman Empire in which there was unprecedented religious tolerance. He uses the term "open-minded(ness)" in the quotation. (I _don't_ mean the often cited:


> "The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true. . ."


That's _not_ the one I need.

The second quotation I can't find comes not from an account of ancient Rome but from early America. I'm pretty sure the line originated with deTocqueville, less confident that it was Henry Adams. The quotation goes like this:



> "America is the worst country in the world in which to be poor."


Again, it seems the answers can't be found by "Googling." But since I know my fellow LitNutters are so knowledgeable and learnéd, perhaps they can help me out.

Thanks!

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## Emil Miller

> What's-his-name (my long-suffering spouse) maintains that you can find everything you want online. I thoroughly disagree! All afternoon I searched in vain for the following:
> 
> The second quotation I can't find comes not from an account of ancient Rome but from early America. I'm pretty sure the line originated with deTocqueville, less confident that it was Henry Adams. The quotation goes like this:
> 
> 
> Again, it seems the answers can't be found by "Googling." But since I know my fellow LitNutters are so knowledgeable and learnéd, perhaps they can help me out.
> 
> Thanks!


You're right it is difficult and there are a great many quotations about America, most of them complimentary but not all.
Here's one that's priceless:

America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization. ~Georges Clemenceau

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## AuntShecky

Yes, there are, Emil, and thanks for this. I need the specific one about America and poverty for an essay that's been brewin' in me tiny little mind. The Gibbon quotation, if it can be found, is for the last chapter in The Lyin' King.

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## cafolini

> Yes, there are, Emil, and thanks for this. I need the specific one about America and poverty for an essay that's been brewin' in me tiny little mind. The Gibbon quotation, if it can be found, is for the last chapter in The Lyin' King.


This is worth a year's wait. ROFLMAO

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## cafolini

The first quote sounds like the guy who stops the bus and asks: "is this the one that goes to Pastomia? "yes, Ms" "Oh, this is the one I don't want."

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## ennison

You certainly cannot find everything on the Internet. I doubt if you ever will. A local library was throwing out an old set of Gibbon so I offered to take it off their hands. "You sad old man," said the librarian - only half in jest. But half a page of Gibbon is like cream on apple pie.

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