Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.

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.

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

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Power should be a check on power.