To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.
In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
Law should be like death, which spares no one.
To succeed in the world we must look foolish but be wise.
The less men think, the more they talk.
That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
Solemnity is the shield of idiots
The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
You have to study a great deal to know a little.
The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.
Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.
I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour's reading would not dissipate.
Brutes are deprived of the high advantages which we have; but they have some which we have not. They have not our hopes, but theyare without our fears; they are subject like us to death, but without knowing it; even most of them are more attentive than we to self-preservation, and do not make so bad a use of their passions.
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: