The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.

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

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 chiefs of state.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.

Power should be a check on power.

Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.