But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians who alone had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.

The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.

In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill . . .

The love of spectacles was the taste, or rather passion, of the Syrians: the most skilful artists were procured form the adjacent cities; a considerable share of the revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was considered as the happiness, and as the glory, of Antioch.

The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilised people to an improved country.

The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.

Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.