Montesquieu

“ THERE is no country in the world where fortune is more inconstant than in this. Every ten years a revolution happens which plunges the wealthy into misery, and raises the poor on rapid wings to the summit of affluence. The one is astonished at his poverty; the other at his riches. The new-made rich man admires the wisdom of providence ”

“ I find, Ibben, the ways of providence in the distribution of wealth admirable. If riches had been granted only to good people, they would not have been sufficiently distinguished from virtue, and their insignificance would not have been fully recognised. But when we consider who are the people most loaded with them, by dint of despising the rich, we come to despise riches. ”

“ The members of it take the places of the unfortunate great, of ruined magistrates, of gentlemen killed in the fury of war; and when they are unable to find supply among themselves, they re-establish all the great families by means of their daughters, which are like a kind of manure enriching barren and mountainous soil. ”