The ambassador [of Russia] and the grandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded to stare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They came to the court balls dropping pearls and vermin.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II. But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen.