To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine
to the dead.
* * * * *
The more perfect civilization is, the less occasion has it for
government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and
govern itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the
reason of the case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion
they ought to diminish. It is but few general laws that civilized life
requires, and those of such common usefulness, that whether they are
enforced by the forms of government or not, the effect will be nearly
the same. If we consider what the principles are that first condense men
into society, and what the motives that regulate their mutual
intercourse afterwards, we shall find, by the time we arrive at what is
called government, that nearly the whole of the business is performed by
the natural operation of the parts upon each other.
* * * * *
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best
state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
* * * * *
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant
and the most rascally individuals of mankind.