These are not vague inferences . . . but they are solid conclusions drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs.

Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society.

The natural effect of low interest is to increase trade and industry; because undertakings of every kind can be prosecuted with greater advantage.

With regard to the learned professions, little need be observed; they truly form no distinct interest in society . . . [discussing the landed, merchant, and learned classes in legislative assembly]. Will not the man of the learned profession, who will feel a neutrality to the rivalships between the different branches of industry, be likely to prove an impartial arbiter between them, ready to promote either, so far as it shall appear to him conducive to the general interests of society?

When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government.

The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.

War, like most other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perserverance, by time, and by practice.