The study of history, it seems to me, leads to the conviction that all important events tend toward the same end - the civilization of mankind.

Who understands much, forgives much.

in Italy, almost at every step, history and poetry add to the graces of nature, sweeten the memory of the past, and seem to preserve it in eternal youth.

The life of famous men was more glorious in antiquity; the life of obscure men is happier with the moderns.

Tombs decked by the arts can scarcely represent death as a formidable enemy; we do not, indeed, like the ancients, carve sports and dances in the sarcophagus, but thought is diverted from the bier by works that tell of immortality, even from the altar of death.

Providence protects us in all the details of our lot.

Every time a new nation, America or Russia for instance, advances toward civilization, the human race perfects itself; every time an inferior class emerges from enslavement and degradation, the human race again perfects itself.