But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

[The] discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny . . .

In the field of controversy I always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle ground exposed to the fire of both sides.

It has been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen.

The dark cloud, which had been cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province [Britain] was again lost among the fabulous Islands of the Ocean.

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.

That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society.