Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all; if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in applying to it the readiest and the surest means of oppression.

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear; Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

The most pernicious of absurdities is that weak, blind, stupid faith is better than the constant practice of every human virtue.

Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. God sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration.

Greatness, as we daily see it, is unsociable.

Political men, like goats, usually thrive best among inequalities.