This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle.

Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.

[Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.

The sentiment of fear is nearly allied to that of hatred.

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.