Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature . . .

Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.

[We should] suspend our belief of every tale that deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man.

The love of action is a principle of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger, to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every virtue, and, if those virtues are accompanied with equal abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be indebted for their safety and prosperity to the undaunted courage of a single man.

The best and most important part of every man's education is that which he gives himself.

At that time the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria was filled by Theophilus, the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue; a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood.

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.

So natural to man is the practice of violence that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility.