Man is by his constitution a religious animal.

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.

We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.

Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

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 true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who belong to them.

Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.