It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.

Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.

Poor Britons, there is some good in them after all - they produced an oyster.

Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune.

The soul is the captain and ruler of the life of morals.

Now the myths represent the Gods themselves and the goodness of the Gods subject always to the distinction of the speakable and the unspeakable, the revealed and the unrevealed, that which is clear and that which is hidden: since, just as the Gods have made the goods of sense common to all, but those of intellect only to the wise, so the myths state the existence of Gods to all, but who and what they are only to those who can understand.

One can ever assume to be what he is not, and to conceal what he is.