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.

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.

Governments must be conformable to the nature of the governed; governments are even a result of that nature.

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

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

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

Understanding arises through making