Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

Democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is corrupted, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality.

There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.

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

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

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.

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.