If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.

[Courage] arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength . . .

We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.

[In] the national and religious conflict of the [Byzantine and Saracen] empires, peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.

The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable.

The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. ... Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.