With reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report always being tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other.

It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disasters to discuss the matter.

In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.

When a man finds a conclusion agreeable, he accepts it without argument, but when he finds it disagreeable, he will bring against it all the forces of logic and reason.

We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.

The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine.

The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention.