Of the three Popes, John the Twenty-third was the first victim; he fled and was brought back a prisoner; the most scandalous charges were suppressed; the Vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder,...

The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public...

Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused

Decent easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder.

During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead...

Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself

The theologians may indulge the pleasing task of describing religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian [read: journalist] He must discover the...

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.

I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.

The names of Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epictetus, and of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which they flourished, and...

Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.

I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.

In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind

A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen...

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery

My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.

It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without becoming soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.

Edward Gibbon, in his classic work on the fall of the Roman Empire, describes the Roman era’s declension as a place where “bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.

Crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.

The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators

The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

I was never less alone than when by myself.

Where error is irreparable, repentance is useless.

In every deed of mischief he [Comenus] had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is...

The ecclesiastical writers, who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation.

The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism

We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.

The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.

Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the...

Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

… but I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.

A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against the enterprise of an aspiring prince

If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the...

It was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline that good soldier should dread his own officers far more than the enemy

Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.

Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.