There is more pleasure in building castles in the air than on the ground.
Edward Gibbon Quotes
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinion I have no respect.
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. (96-180 A.D.)
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
A portrait endowed with every merit excepting that of likeness to the original. (insult of Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer)
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers’ pay was lavished on […]
Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
