There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.

[Adams] supposed that, except musicians, everyone thought Beethoven a bore, as every one except mathematicians thought mathematics a bore.

There are two things that seem to be at the bottom of our constitutions; one is a continual tendency towards politics; the other is family pride; and it is strange how these two feelings run through all of us.

A society in stable equilibrium is-by definition-one that has no history and wants no historians.

As a historian, he felt it his duty to respect everything that had ever been respected, except for the occasional statesman.

It [love] is a disease to be born with patience, like any nervous complaint, and to be treated with counter-irritants.

By nature, man is lazy, working only under compulsion; and when he is strong we will always live, as far as he can, upon the labor or the property of the weak.