"War," says Machiavelli, "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans." A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature.

The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment.

Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

There are circumstances in which despair does not imply inactivity.

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?