The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an ample revenue; to impose it with judgment and equality; to employ it economically; and, when necessity obliges him to make use of credit, to secure its foundations in that instance, and for ever, by the clearness and candor of his proceedings, the exactness of his calculations, and the solidity of his funds.

The parties are the gamesters; but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end.

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.

There are some men formed with feelings so blunt that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives.

Is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task.

Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.

Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.