Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors.

Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the improvements of social life.

[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.

Rational confidence [is] the just result of knowledge and experience.

The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.

The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.