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

The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.

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 government cannot be wrong in punishing fraud or force, but it is almost certain to be wrong if, abandoning its legitimate function, it tells private individuals that it knows their business better than they know it themselves.

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.

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.

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