Since the primitive times, the wealth of the popes was exposed to envy, their powers to opposition, and their persons to violence.

But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burdens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord.

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

Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure.

If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.

[The] discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny . . .

[Instead] of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.