And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

[The] emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, [had] reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage.

But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest.

The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe subordination of rank and office, from the titled slaves who were seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary power.

[Every age], however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.

Yet the people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the republic. The first moment of the public safety is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied by envy and calumny.

The vain, inconstant, rebellious disposition of the people [of Armorica], was incompatible either with freedom or servitude.