When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

Who does not more admire Cicero as an author than as a consul of Rome?

The talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing to laughter those one converses with, is the qualification of little ungenerous tempers.

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.

We see no where the pernicious effects of luxury on a republic more than in that of the ancient Romans, who immediately found itself poor as soon as this vice got footing among them, though they were possessed of all the riches in the world.

Persons in great stations have seldom their true character drawn till several years after their death. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunities of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it.