My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.

The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians.

That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society.

The science of the laws is the slow growth of time and experience.

The land was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth.

[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.

Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.