The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.

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

Where error is irreparable, repentance is useless.

[The] penalty of death was abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety.

It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable.

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.

It has been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen.