When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty..

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions..

The pagan religion, which prohibited only some of the grosser crimes, and which stopped the hand but meddled not with the heart, might have crimes th….

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires..

In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chi….

Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous..

Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of….

If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly..

A rational army would run away..

...when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost..

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer..

For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions..

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 sp….

It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things..

It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than….

The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them..