That is the best Government, which best provides for war.

Laws and constitutions ought to be weighed... to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of justice and liberty.

No right can come by conquest, unless there were a right of making that conquest.

Fruits are always of the same nature with the seeds and roots from which they come, and trees are known by the fruits they bear: as a man begets a man, and a beast a beast, that society of men which constitutes a government upon the foundation of justice, virtue, and the common good, will always have men to promote those ends; and that which intends the advancement of one man's desire and vanity, will abound in those that will foment them.

[A]ll popular and well-mixed governments [republics] . . . are ever established by wise and good men, and can never be upheld otherwise than by virtue: The worst men always conspiring against them, they must fall, if the best have not power to preserve them. . . . [and] unless they be preserved in a great measure free from vices . . . .

If his Majesty is resolved to have my head, he may make a whistle of my arse if he pleases.

Liars need to have good memories.