In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chiefs of state.

If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.

The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.

Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.

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