A CERTAIN witty advocate remarked: “One would risk being disgusted if one saw politics, justice, and one’s dinner in the making.” * * * * * ’TIS easier to make certain things legal than to make them legitimate. * * * * * EXPERIENCE which enlightens private persons corrupts princes and officials. * * * * * HAD any one told Adam, on the day following the death of Abel, that some centuries later there would be places where, in an enclosure of twelve square miles, seven or eight hundred thousand people would be concentrated, piled one upon another, do you imagine he would have believed it possible that such multitudes could ever live together? Would he not have conceived an idea of the crimes and monstrosities that would be committed under such conditions much more terrible than the reality has proved? This is a point we ought to bear in mind, as a consolation for the drawbacks of these extraordinary assemblages of human beings. * * * * * WERE a historian like Tacitus to write a history of the best of our kings, giving an exact account of all the tyrannical acts and abuses of authority, the majority of which lie buried in the profoundest obscurity, there would be few reigns which would not inspire us with the same horror as that of Tiberius. * * * * * OFTEN in early youth an opinion or custom seems absurd to us, which, with advancing years, we discover has some justification and so appears less absurd. Ought we to conclude from this that certain customs are not so ridiculous as others? One might sometimes be tempted to think that they were established by people who had read the book of life through, and that they are judged by those who, despite their intelligence, have only glanced at a few pages. * * * * * LIKE animals that cannot breathe at a certain altitude without perishing, the slave dies in the atmosphere of freedom. * * * * * IT is unfortunate for men, fortunate perhaps for tyrants, that the poor and unhappy have not the instinct or pride of the elephant which does not reproduce itself in servitude. * * * * * THERE is no history worthy attention save that of free nations; the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes. * * * * *