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.

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

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

The upper current of society presents no pertain criterion by which we can judge of the direction in which the under current flows.

There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.

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

Boswell is the first of biographers.