If this Punic war was carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much less to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending prelates.

When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his arms for a new encounter.

The chaste severity of the fathers in whatever related to the commerce of the two sexes flowed from the same principle -- their abhorrence of every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was their favourite opinion, that if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator, he would have lived for ever in a state of virgin purity, and that some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal beings.

Amiable weaknesses of human nature.

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

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom.