It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.

Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.

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

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.

The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.

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.

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.