Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition.

As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast—alternately tempestuous and serene—so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny.