There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.

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.

Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.

Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

In vain do we seek tranquility in the desert; temptations are always with us; our passions, represented by the demons, never let us alone: those monsters created by the heart, those illusions produced by the mind, those vain specters that are our errors and our lies always appear before us to seduce us; they attack us even in our fasting or our mortifications, in other words, in our very strength.

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