Law should be like death, which spares no one.

Power ought to serve as a check to power.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.

When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.

The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.

Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.