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Rh our eyes, are represented by politicians as the effects of great designs, instead of which they are commonly the effects of caprice and of the passions. Thus the war between Augustus and Antony, which is attributed to the ambition they had of making themselves masters of the world, was, perhaps, nothing but a result of jealousy.

The passions are the only orators that always persuade: they are, as it were, a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion, is more persuasive than the most eloquent, without it.

The passions have an injustice and an interest of their own, which renders it dangerous to obey them, and we ought to mistrust them even when they appear most reasonable.

There is going on in the human heart a perpetual generation of passions, so that the overthrow of one is almost always the establishment of another.