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

No tyranny is more cruel than the one practised in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice - when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves. And since a tyrant never lacks instruments for his tyranny, Tiberius always found judges ready to condemn as many people as he might suspect.

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.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

An injustice to one is a threat made to all