Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.

In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.

As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.

Christians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them: experience has shown the error of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of the persecution of those Christians in France whose belief differed a little from that of the king. They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.

Better it is to say that the government most comfortable to nature is that which best agrees with the humor and disposition of the people in whose favor it is established.

Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.

Love of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.