The pathetic almost always consists in the detail of little events. |
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive |
The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. |
The theologians may indulge the pleasing task of describing religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian [read: journalist] He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings. |
The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant. |
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 wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators |
The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. |
Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism |
Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative. |
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking,unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. |
Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave. |
We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win. |