What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, and charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, civil as well as political.

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

There is no folly of which a man who is not a fool cannot get rid except vanity; of this nothing cures a man except experience of its bad consequences, if indeed anything can cure it.

It is not our criminal actions that require courage to confess, but those which are ridiculous and foolish.

Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man

In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.

The most absolute authority is that which penetrates into a man's innermost being and concerns itself no less with his will than with his actions.