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

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.

If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.

Brutes are deprived of the high advantages which we have; but they have some which we have not. They have not our hopes, but theyare without our fears; they are subject like us to death, but without knowing it; even most of them are more attentive than we to self-preservation, and do not make so bad a use of their passions.

Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.