Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics.

The religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticism, fancies, and falsehoods.

Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

The purpose of establishing different houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles.

I shall rejoin myself to my native country, with new attachments, and with exaggerated esteem for its advantages; for though there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease, and less misery.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.