Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.

They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings.

Power should be a check on power.

Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.