There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion..

Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it..

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..

I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars;….

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy..

Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty..

The spirit of commerce... renders every man willing to live on his own property...& prevents the growth of luxury..

The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its r….

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 ….

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….

The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and….

There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided..

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have our….

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them..

The state of slavery is in its own nature bad..

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 n….

The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic r….

When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty..

A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes..

There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate..

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies..