There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.
Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
Peace is a natural effect of trade.
Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
A love of the republic in a democracy is a love of the democracy, as the latter is that of equality. A love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality. Since every individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness, and the same advantages, they should consequently taste the same pleasures and form the same hopes, which cannot be expected but from a general frugality.
The English are busy; they don't have time to be polite.
Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.
When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.
There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
The coffee is prepared in such a way that it makes those who drink it witty: at least there is not a single soul who, on quitting the house, does not believe himself four times wittier that when he entered it.
There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
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