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

The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident

...when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.

The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.

With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.