Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

In this primitive and abject state [of hunters and gatherers], which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.

[Peace] cannot be honorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.

The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered, as a singular event in the history of the human mind.

It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.