Keen at the start, but careless at the end.
Viewed from a distance, everything is beautiful.
The unknown always passes for the marvellous.
Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.
The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion.
This I regard as history's highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds.