“A nation of underachievers is easier to control than a society that excels.”

“Knackered inmates are easier to control than pumped-up ones. And dead inmates are even easier to control, if you follow me.”

“A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is launched there.”

“Nothing is more important to a nation than its history. It is the earth upon which any society stands.”

“Nothing can appear more contradictory than the principles on which the old governments began, and the condition to which society, civilisation and commerce are capable of carrying mankind. Government, one the old system, is an assumption of power, for the aggrandisement of itself; on the new, a delegation of power for the common benefit of society. The former supports itself by keeping up a system of war; the later promotes a system of peace, as the true means of enriching a nation. The one encourages national prejudices; the other promotes universal society, as the means of universal commerce. The one measures its prosperity, by the quantity of revenue it extorts; the other proves its excellence, by the small quantity of taxes it requires.”

“The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius...”