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

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

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.

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

The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and the demons.

It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable.

[The monks'] credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science.