The same ideas, one must believe, recur in men's minds not once or twice but again and again.

There is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offenses, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom.

Those who have the command of the arms in a country are masters of the state, and have it in their power to make what revolutions they please. [Thus,] there is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people.

In all things which have a plurality of parts, and which are not a total aggregate but a whole of some sort distinct from the parts, there is some cause.

Indeed, we may go further and assert that anyone who does not delight in fine actions is not even a good man.

The science that studies the supreme good for man is politics.

People never know each other until they have eaten a certain amount of salt together.