In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.
Active valour may often be the present of nature; but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline.
As for this young Ali, one cannot but like him. A noble-minded creature, as he shows himself, now and always afterwards; full of affection, of fiery daring. Something chivalrous in him; brave as a lion; yet with a grace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood.
It is seldom that minds long exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the want of occupation.
Amiable weaknesses of human nature.
To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.
In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.
In everyage and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, ofthetwosexes, hasusurped thepowers ofthe state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life.
The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure.
A taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life.
The Indian who fells the tree that he may gather the fruit, and the Arab who plunders the caravans of commerce are actuated by the same impulse of savage nature, and relinquish for momentary rapine the long and secure possession of the most important blessings.
A state of skepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision.
The fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and the demons.
The primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most extraordinary events.
The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind.
It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.
Does there exist a single instance of a saint asserting that he himself possessed the gift of miracles?
History should be to the political economist a wellspring of experience and wisdom.
It was among the ruins of the capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised nearly twenty years of my life.