I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a Benedictine abbot: "My vow of poverty has given me a hundred thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince." - I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.

The history of empires is the record of human misery; the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.

Under a democratical government the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude.

[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.

[Whole] generations may be swept away by the madness of kings in the space of a single hour.

It is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.

The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.