There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.

What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.

Laws are commanded to hold their tongues among arms; and tribunals fall to the ground with the peace they are no longer able to uphold.

Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the character of the age.

I cannot help concurring with the opinion that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government.

Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue.