The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.

Understanding arises through making

Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth.

The straight line cannot proceed through the torturous twists of life.

The nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally dissolute.

Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.

Political Science carries inseparably with it the study of piety, and that he who is not pious cannot be truly wise.