“The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.”

“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.”

“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 primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.”

“After a war of about 40 years, undertaken by the most stupid [Claudius], maintained by the most dissolute [Nero], and terminated by the most timid [Domitian] of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island [of Britain] submitted to the Roman yoke.”

“Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.”

“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 creative and original;Widening disparity between very rich and very poor; Increased demand to live off the state.”

“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.”