“For power, you know, is a fretful thing, and hath its wings always spread for flight.”

“We of the sea come to know each other quickly; our loves, like our hates, are born of sudden dangers.”

“There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it.”

“There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or in the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history.”

“In every four there is one the slowest, and one the swiftest; and while the race is always to the slowest, the trouble is always with the swiftest.”

“It was then I saw thy mother, and loved her, and took her away in my secret heart.”

“Pride is never so loud as when in chains.”

“I see, I see! From association Messala, in boyhood, was almost a Jew; had he remained here, he might have become a proselyte, so much do we all borrow from the influences that ripen our lives; but the years in Rome have been too much for him. I do not wonder at the change; yet”--her voice fell--“he might have dealt tenderly at least with you. It is a hard, cruel nature which in youth can forget its first loves.”

“The enemy of man is man, my brother.”

“He was angry; not as the irritable, from chafing of a trifle; nor was his anger like the fool's, pumped from the wells of nothing, to be dissipated by a reproach or a curse; it was the wrath peculiar to ardent natures rudely awakened by the sudden annihilation of a hope --dream, if you will-- in which the choicest happinesses were thought to be certainly in reach. In such case nothing intermediate will carry off the passion --the quarrel is with Fate.”

“They are like men: if bold, the better of scolding; if timid, the better of praise and flattery.”