The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.

The progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life.

The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.

[It] is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.

We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.

Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.

The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.