The reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.

It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.

And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it; but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.

For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find.

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.

There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society.

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.