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

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.

The pagan religion, which prohibited only some of the grosser crimes, and which stopped the hand but meddled not with the heart, might have crimes that were inexplicable.

I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.

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

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.