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

When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.

The state is the association of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and the man remain.

When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.

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

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.