Friends are much better tried in bad fortune than in good.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

When quarrels and complaints arise, it is when people who are equal have not got equal shares, or vice-versa.

The only stable principle of government is equality according to proportion, and for every man to enjoy his own.

When there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end.

It is impossible, or not easy, to alter by argument what has long been absorbed by habit

The difference between a learned man and an ignorant one is the same as that between a living man and a corpse.