Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave.
Greek is a musical and prolific language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstractions of philosophy.
Language is the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind.
The revolution of ages may bring round the same calamities; but ages may revolve without producing a Tacitus to describe them.
There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest.
It was no longer esteemed infamous for a Roman to survive his honor and independence.
It is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.
A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment.
Majorian presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honor of the human species.
Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements.
A Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.
The science of the laws is the slow growth of time and experience.
The books of jurisprudence were interesting to few, and entertaining to none: their value was connected with present use, and they sunk forever as soon as that use was superseded by the innovations of fashion, superior merit, or public authority.
It has been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen.
Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilized society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity, whether Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities, which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome.
Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors.
The active, insatiate principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of the human race.
Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure.