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

As for this young Ali, one cannot but like him. A noble-minded creature, as he shows himself, now and always afterwards; full of affection, of fiery daring. Something chivalrous in him; brave as a lion; yet with a grace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood.

The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and the demons.

Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.

The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave.

It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals; but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.