Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

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

Vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous. To be convinced of this we need only represent, on the one hand,the numberless benefits which result from vanity, as industry, the arts, fashions, politeness, and taste; and on the other, the infinite evils which spring from the pride of certain nations, a laziness, poverty, a total neglect of everything.

In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.

There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate.