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

The spirit of commerce is frugality, economy, moderation, labor, ponderance, tranquillity, order, and rule. So long as this spirit subsides, the riches it produces have no bad effect. The mischief is when excessive wealth destroys the spirit of commerce, then it is that the conveniences of inequality... are felt.

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.

The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

Better it is to say that the government most comfortable to nature is that which best agrees with the humor and disposition of the people in whose favor it is established.

To succeed in the world we must look foolish but be wise.