Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Nations have always good reasons for being what they are, and the best of all is that they cannot be otherwise.
To appreciate and use correctly a valuable maxim requires a genius; a vital appropriating exercise of mind closely allied to that which first created it.
They enlarged the domains of commerce by treaties with all nations, upon the great principle of equal justice to all nations, and special favors to none.
A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.
Above all nations is humanity.
Nations whose nationalism is destroyed are subject to ruin.
Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives.
The love of domination and an uncontrolled lust of arbitrary power have prevailed among all nations and perhaps in proportion to the degrees of civilization.
We hear of the wealth of nations, of the powers of production, of the demand and supply of markets, and we forget that these words mean no more, if they mean any thing, then the happiness, and the labor, and the necessities of men.