Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
A state of scepticism 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...
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 supr...
The most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no farther than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing, except a divine revelatio...
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
During the long period which elapsed between the Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow compass of the present li...
Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.
لقد حكمت البلاد لمدة أربعين عاما ... مرهوبا من أعدائي ... محبوبا من أصدقائي ... محترما من خصومي ... لم يعوزني شيء من النعيم الأرضي ... و لكن لقد قمت باحصاء عدد الأيام التي كنت سعيدا فيها سعادة حقيقية...
In their censures of luxury, the fathers are extremely minute and circumstantial;89 and among the various articles which excite their pious indignation, we may enumerate false hair, garments of any co...
I was never less alone than when by myself.
On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and, after bestowing a careless glance on five or six...
According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised.
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.
It is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the the inferior ranks of mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure, which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of...
The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture, the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune, and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius of Rome...
The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own power: but the possession of a throne could never yet afford a lasti...
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.
Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed,...
Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.