everything in a state: I say in a state; for it is not the same between
nations. The nation which makes the best use of the sword will always
subjugate the nation which has more gold and less courage.

All men are born with a sufficiently violent liking for domination,
wealth and pleasure, and with much taste for idleness; consequently, all
men want their money and the wives or daughters of others, to be their
master, to subject them to all their caprices, and to do nothing, or at
least to do only very agreeable things. You see clearly that with these
fine inclinations it is as impossible for men to be equal as it is
impossible for two predicants or two professors of theology not to be
jealous of each other.

The human race, such as it is, cannot subsist unless there is an
infinity of useful men who possess nothing at all; for it is certain
that a man who is well off will not leave his own land to come to till
yours; and if you have need of a pair of shoes, it is not the Secretary
to the Privy Council who will make them for you. Equality, therefore, is
at once the most natural thing and the most fantastic.

As men go to excess in everything when they can, this inequality has
been exaggerated. It has been maintained in many countries that it was
not permissible for a citizen to leave the country where chance has
caused him to be born; the sense of this law is visibly: "This land is
so bad and so badly governed, that we forbid any individual to leave it,
for fear that everyone will leave it." Do better: make all your subjects
want to live in your country, and foreigners to come to it.

All men have the right in the bottom of their hearts to think themselves
entirely equal to other men: it does not follow from that that the