The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.

The desire of posthumous fame and the dread of posthumous reproach and execration are feelings from the influence of which scarcely any man is perfectly free, and which in many men are powerful and constant motives of action.

That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.

He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.

No particular man is necessary to the state. We may depend on it that, if we provide the country with popular institutions, those institutions will provide it with great men.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, the ancients were at least our equals.