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.

Vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous. To be convinced of this we need only represent, on the one hand,the numberless benefits which result from vanity, as industry, the arts, fashions, politeness, and taste; and on the other, the infinite evils which spring from the pride of certain nations, a laziness, poverty, a total neglect of everything.

I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself

I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.

Virtue has needs of limits.

Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.

Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.