The voice of history is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.

Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman empire, the labour of an industrious and ingenious people was variously, but incessantly employed, in the service of the rich. In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture, the favourites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency, of elegance, and of splendour, whatever could soothe their pride or gratify their sensuality.

Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.

There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.

War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.

The history of empires is the record of human misery; the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.

The Indian who fells the tree that he may gather the fruit, and the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce are actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, and relinquish for momentary rapine the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.