The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it - The Territory is worth. Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little timely pruning.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.

No man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.

None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.

Then none was for a party; Than all were for the state; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great: Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.