Scrupulous people are not suited to great affairs.

The whole mass of humanity . . . marches constantly, though slowly, toward greater perfection.

What I admire in Columbus is not his having discovered a new world but his having gone to search for it on the faith of an opinion.

All money is essentially merchandize.

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

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

It is not error which opposes the progress of truth; it is indolence, obstinacy, the spirit of routine, every thing which favors inaction.