When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself.
I advocate world government because I am convinced that there is no other possible way of eliminating the most terrible danger in which man has ever found himself. The objective of avoiding total destruction must have priority over any other objective.
The light that a man receives by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which comes from his own understanding and judgment, which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs.
Nothing discernible to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidable, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.
As men get on in life, they acquire a love for sincerity, and somewhat less solicitude to be lulled or amused. In the progress ofthe character, there is an increasing faith in the moral sentiment, and a decreasing faith in propositions.
When trying a case [the famous judge] L. Cassius never failed to inquire "Who gained by it?" Man's character is such that no one undertakes crimes without hope of gain.