I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants are swamped by too much water or lamps by too much oil; that our minds, held fast and encumbered by so many diverse preoccupations, may well lose the means of struggling free, remaining bowed and bent under the load; except that it is quite otherwise: the more our souls are filled, the more they expand; examples drawn from far-off times show, on the contrary, that great soldiers ad statesmen were also great scholars.

The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.

Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind?

How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state.

Few men have been admired of their familiars.

The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.