In the matter of dress one should always keep below one's ability.

Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody

Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their 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.

They who love to inform themselves, are never idle. Though I have no business of consequence to take care of, I am nevertheless continually employed. I spend my life in examining things: I write down in the evening whatever I have remarked, what I have seen, and what I have heard in the day: every thing engages my attention, and every thing excites my wonder: I am like an infant, whose organs, as yet tender, are strongly affected by the slightest objects.

Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

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