What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.

Amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people.

A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.

Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution.

Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.

When the people rule, they must be rendered happy, or they will overturn the state.

On close inspection, we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government.