If men will permit themselves to think, as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expence of building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean, to try which can sink each other fastester. Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infintely more advantage than any victory with all its expence. But this, though it best answers the purpose of Nations, does not that of Court Governments, whose habited policy is pretence for taxation, places, and offices.

It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration.

No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.

The Vatican is a dagger in the heart of Italy.

It will be proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments have arisen, and on which they have been founded.

How strangely is antiquity treated! To answer some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and ignorance, and to answer others, it is put for the light of the world.

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.