Over these their chief had a considerable power, and the more considerable because it depended upon influence rather than institution: influence among so free a people being the principal source of power.
He describes the chief's power as significant but reliant on influence rather than formal institutions in a free society.
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Every honest mind, every true lover of liberty and humanity, must rejoice to find that injustice is not always good policy, nor rapine the high-road to riches.
Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind.
Never did a state, in any case, enrich itself by the confiscations of the citizens.
Who but the most desperate adventurers in philosophy and finance could at all have thought of destroying the settled revenue of the state, the sole security for the public credit, in the hope of rebuilding it with the materials of…
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