Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.

Very good laws may be ill timed.

The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.

Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.