If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.

Man is a social animal formed to please in society.

In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.

Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.

The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

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