Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy.

There is more pleasure to building castles in the air than on the ground.

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.

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 dark cloud, which had been cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province [Britain] was again lost among the fabulous Islands of the Ocean.

There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and the love of action. If the former is refined by art and learning, improved by the charms of social intercourse, and corrected by a just regard to economy, to health, and to reputation, it is productive of the greatest part of the happiness of private life.

[The] vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.