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

History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.

It was no longer esteemed infamous for a Roman to survive his honor and independence.

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.

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

[We should] suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man.

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.