War never leaves where it found a nation.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.

To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.

But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.

We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt.