The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechumens, with an affected secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity.

[All] the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.

These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and safety with valour.

[Personal] industry must be faint and languid, which is not excited by the sense of personal interest.

In a distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.

The fabric of a mighty state, which has been reared by the labours of successive ages, could not be overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the calamity.

It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work.