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

Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.

The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.

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

If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.