The pains and pleasures of the body, howsoever important to ourselves, are an indelicate subject of conversation

The books of jurisprudence were interesting to few, and entertaining to none: their value was connected with present use, and they sunk forever as soon as that use was superseded by the innovations of fashion, superior merit, or public authority.

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to which our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.

There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest.

But this inestimable privilege was soon violated: with the knowledge of truth the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation.

Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy.

The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.