On the whole, it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is partly made up of a percepti… - Edmund Burke

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

These principles it is necessary strictly to attend to, because they will serve much to explain the whole course both of government and real property, wherever the German nations obtained a settlement; the whole of their government depending for the most part upon two principles in our nature,—ambition, that makes one man desirous, at any hazard or expense, of taking the lead amongst others; and admiration, which makes others equally desirous of following him from the mere pleasure of admiration, and a sort of secondary ambition, one of the most universal passions among men. These two principles, strong both of them in our nature, create a voluntary inequality and dependence.

Who but a tyrant (a name expressive of every thing which can vitiate and degrade human nature) could think of seizing on the property of men, unaccused, unheard, untried, by whole descriptions, by hundreds and thousands together?