If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse

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

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.

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

[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread... and a thousand other things of the same kind.

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.