The love of dominion is the most engrossing passion.
The unknown always passes for the marvellous.
When the State is corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.
Every great example of punishment has in it some injustice, but the suffering individual is compensated by the public good.
Indeed, the crowning proof of their valour and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others.
This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.