A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness.
The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.
The land was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth.
Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects.
But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burdens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord.
The Gauls were endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but as they wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the victorious Barbarians, by whose clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives.
The love of freedom, so often invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced, among the licentious Franks, to the contempt of order, and the desire of impunity.
Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.
The sentiment of fear is nearly allied to that of hatred.
Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.
Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon bounded by the sepulchre.
The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.
The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.
Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
A false modesty is the meanest species of pride.
Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their invisible enemies.
A bloody and complete victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession of the field and the loss of ten thousand men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy, in a single day, the work of ages.
When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his arms for a new encounter.