Virtue has needs of limits.

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

That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.

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.

People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.

The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.

Very good laws may be ill timed.