… but I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.
Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives to himself.
Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.
War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.
My early and invincible love of reading–I would not exchange for the treasures of India.
Edward Gibbon, in his classic work on the fall of the Roman Empire, describes the Roman era’s declension as a place where “bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
Where error is irreparable, repentance is useless.
All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude.
Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and the people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedoms.
It was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline that good soldier should dread his own officers far more than the enemy
Fear has been the original parent of superstition, every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of invisible enemies
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
Conversation enriches the understanding but solitude is the school of genius.
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes follies and misfortunes of mankind.
Unprovided with original learning unformed in the habits of thinking unskilled in the arts of composition I resolved to write a book.
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for the treasures of India.
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true by the philosopher as equally false and by the magistrate as equally useful.
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.