No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.

So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.

The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.

Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.

An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft.

The real essence of work is concentrated energy.