Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis. He snatched the lightning from the sky and the sceptre from tyrants.

All is more or less proper to serve as a common measure, in proportion as it is more or less in general use, of a more similar quality, and more easy to be divided into aliquot parts. All is more or less applicable for the purpose of a general pledge of exchange, in proportion as it is less susceptible of decay or alteration in quantity or quality.

All money is essentially merchandize.

If the land was divided among all the inhabitants of a country, so that each of them possessed precisely the quantity necessary for his support, and nothing more; it is evident that all of them being equal, no one would work for another. Neither would any of them possess wherewith to pay another for his labour, for each person having only such a quantity of land as was necessary to produce a subsistence, would consume all he should gather, and would not have any thing to give in exchange for the labour of others.

Scrupulous people are not suited to great affairs.

Every soil does not produce every material.

Gold and silver are constituted, by the nature of things, money, and universal money, independent of all convention, and of all laws.