And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?

There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him; he changed his mind, and went to the oars.

Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.

In employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, we are only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself.

Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.

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.

We never could clearly understand how it is that egotism, so unpopular in conversation, should be so popular in writing.