As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.

I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.

Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.

Peace is a natural effect of trade.

There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.

When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.

The state is the association of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and the man remain.