The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.

The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.

Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism.

The land was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth.

But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot suddenly transform the temper of the times . . .

In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and, in that sense, the most respectable part of the community.

[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war.