Both in individuals and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we have shown undue rigor.

More sinners are cursed at not because we despise their sins but because we envy their success at sinning.

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false.

Our judgment ripens; our imagination decays. We cannot at once enjoy the flowers of the Spring of life and the fruits of its Autumn.

The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets whose works have come down to us were not mere imitators of foreign models; and it is therefore the sort of composition in which they have never been excelled.