I have ever esteemed it charlatanry to paint, other than by facts, public men with whom we have had no connection.—_Corr. gen._, 1752. If one surveys the history of the world, one finds weaknesses punished, but great crimes fortunate, and the world is a vast scene of brigandages abandoned to fortune.—_Essai sur les Mœurs_, c. 191. Since the ancient Romans, I have known no nation enriched by victories.—_Contant d’ Orville_, i. 337. To buy peace from an enemy is to furnish him with the sinews of war.—_Ibid_, p. 334. The grand art of surprising, killing, and robbing is a heroism of the highest antiquity.—_Dial_. 24. Murderers are punished, unless they kill in grand company to the sound of trumpets; that is the rule.—_Dict. Phil_. (Art. “Droit”). We formerly made war in order to eat; but in the long run, all the admirable institutions degenerate.—_Dial._ 24. It suffices often that a mad Minister of State shall have bitten another Minister for the rabies to be communicated in a few months to five hundred thousand men.—_Ibid_. In this world there (are) only offensive wars; defensive ones are only resistance to armed robbers.—_Ibid._ Twenty volumes in folio never yet made a revolution. It is the portable little shilling books that are to be feared. If the Gospel cost twelve hundred sesterces, the Christian religion would never have been established.—_Correspondence with D1 Alembert_, 1765. Wars C.: What, you do not admit there are just wars? A.: I have never known any of the kind; to me it appears contradictory and impossible. C.: What! when the Pope Alexander VI. and his infamous son Borgia pillaged the Roman States, strangled and poisoned the lords of the land, while according them indulgences: was it not permissible to arm against these monsters? A.: Do you not see that it was these monsters who made war? Those who defended themselves from aggression but sustained it. There are constantly only offensive wars in this world; the defensive is nothing but resistance to armed robbers. C.: You mock us. Two princes dispute an heritage, their right is litigious, their reasons equally plausible; it is necessary then that war should decide, and this war is just on both sides. A.: It is you who mock. It is physically impossible that both are right, and it is absurd and barbarous that the people should perish because one of these two princes has reasoned badly. Let them fight together in a closed field if they wish, but that an entire people should be sacrificed to their interests, there is the horror.—_l’ A.B.C._ Politics They have discovered in their fine politics the art of causing those to die of hunger who, by cultivating the earth, give the means of life to others.—_Sottisier._ Society has been too long like a game of cards, where the rogues cheat the dupes, while sensible people dare not warn the losers that they are deceived.—_Questions sur les Miracles_.