Twenty-two acknowledged concubines and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the productions he left behind him, it appears the former as well as t...
The knowledge that is suited to our situation and powers, the whole compass of moral, natural, and mathematical science, was neglected by the new Platonists; whilst they exhausted their strength in th...
The descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion, that they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance, by sharing it too ea...
The conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many wonderful and so many bloody circumstances, that the victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility with all their nei...
The attack of a man, equipped with erudition, and of perfectly sober judgment, on cherished beliefs and revered institutions, must always excite the interest, by irritating the passions, of men.
It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, in...
Five times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years he passed as an exile or a fugitive; and almost every province of the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his suffe...
Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.
So intimate is the connexion between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people.
The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects....
The names of Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epictetus, and of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which they flourished, and exa...
The five marks of the Roman decaying culture:Concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth;Obsession with sex and perversions of sex;Art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of...
In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly bestowed on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage of the who...
Conversation enriches the understanding but solitude is the school of genius.
The public highways, which had been constructed for the use of the legions, opened an easy passage for the Christians missionaries from Damascus to Corinth, and from Italy to the extremity of Spain or...
He who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of ten thousand prayers. ^15
But as truth and reason seldom find so favourable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the human heart, and the general circumstances...
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
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. And thu...
If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery [of gunpowder] with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, w...