The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event.

But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral of physical government of the world.

A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness.

Style is the image of character.

The mathematics are distinguished by a particular privilege, that is, in the course of ages, they may always advance and can never recede.

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

The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events.