"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.

And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.

I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others

Nothing so effectually deadens the taste of the sublime as that which is light and radiant.

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.

I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from an obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.