The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.

Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.

Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.

Luxury either comes of riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness.

The political body, therefore, is also a moral being which has a will; and this general will, which tends always to the conservation and well-being of the whole and of each part of it ... is, for all members of the state ... the rule of what is just or unjust.

In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.