I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.

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.

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

The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.

[Instead] of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.