Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.

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

The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.

Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

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