A perfect historian must possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting and picturesque; yet he must control it so absolutely as to content himself with the materials which he finds, and to refrain from supplying deficiencies by additions of his own. He must be a profound and ingenious reasoner; yet he must possess sufficient self-command to abstain from casting his facts in the mould of his hypothesis.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.

Byron owed the vast influence which he exercised over his contemporaries at least as much to his gloomy egotism as to the real power of his poetry.

So true it is, that nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.

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

The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.