I darted a contemptuous look at the stately models of superstition.

The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked and gradually united against him two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit of St. Sophia against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without wounding or even marking the character of any individual.

[Whole] generations may be swept away by the madness of kings in the space of a single hour.

Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors.

My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the decent obscurity of a learned language.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.