The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year: and, as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds; who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.

The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.

[Personal] industry must be faint and languid, which is not excited by the sense of personal interest.

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

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.

The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.

The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.