The great cause of revolutions is this, that while nations move onward, constitutions stand still.

He [Charles II] was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.

A Grecian history, perfectly written should be a complete record of the rise and progress of poetry, philosophy, and the arts.

The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.

The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.

We must succumb to the general influence of the times. No man can be of the tenth century, if he would; be must be a man of the nineteenth century.

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