Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety.

In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority...and that oppression of the majority will extend to far great number, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. Under a cruel prince they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.

The marketplace obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success.

Sallust is indisputably one of the best historians among the Romans, both for the purity of his language and the elegance of his style.

Nnothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.