To converse with historians is to keep good company; many of them were excellent men, and those who were not, have taken care to appear such in their writings.

The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

No religion ever appeared in the world whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind. It makes right reason a law in every possible definition of the word. And therefore, even supposing it to have been purely a human invention, it had been the most amiable and the most useful invention that was ever imposed on mankind for their good.

I have read somewhere or other, - in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think, - that history is philosophy teaching by examples.

A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship.

The fire of my adversity has purged the mass of my acquaintance.

It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.