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

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.

There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix

In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.

Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody

There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.