Fair for Its Day/Quotes

"It was a time and place, compared to say, medieval France, or 18th-century Spain, or late 20th-century Iran of astounding diversity of religious views. Jew and gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Methodist and Anglican, Quaker and Baptist, and even the occasional Muslim, Druid, and atheist lived together with some mutual harassment, but, for the most part, without killing each other. It was no small achievement."

- Daily Life in Eighteenth Century England by Kristen Olsen

''"So", he burped, "the boy finally got frustrated and ordered his men to find him some outright slaves." Another burp. "Slaves can be treated any way their master chooses in any country." (That was a lie. It was not true in most civilized realms, not in modern times. It was certainly not true under Roman law. But he did not think that Venandakatra would know otherwise. Slaves, and their legal rights, were far beneath the great lord's contempt. In any country-certainly in his own)

-Roman general Belisarius as a spy, using a drinking party to reinforce an ally's cover as a supposed Royal Brat

Belisarius Series, by Eric Flint and David Drake