It is a position not to be controverted, that the earth ... was and ever would have continued to be, the COMMON PROPERTY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

A world of little cares is continually arising, which busy or affluent life knows nothing of, to open the first door to distress. Hunger is not among the postponable wants; and a day, even a few hours, in such a condition is often the crisis of a life of ruin.

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.

It is not a charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together

The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to venture.

Death is not the monarch for the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject.

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.