Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.

The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.

Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

Of all the ills that our poor ... society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards.

Books are humanity in print.

Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence.

[T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death.