Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate.

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.

A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.

Virtue is necessary to a republic.