Nothing mortal is so unstable and subject to change as power which has no foundation.

Posterity allows to every man his true value and proper honours.

War will of itself discover and lay open the hidden and rankling wounds of the victorious party.

In private enterprises men may advance or recede, whereas they who aim at empire have no alternative between the highest success and utter downfall.

So true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity.

All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others.

It is of eloquence as of a flame; it requires matter to feed it, and motion to excite it; and it brightens as it burns.