Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.

Equity money is dynamic and debt money is static.

Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature.

The ocean is an object of no small terror.

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.

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