Men universally are ungrateful towards him who instructs them, unless, in the hours or in the intervals of instruction, he presents a sweet-cake to their self-love.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature.

Many laws as certainly make men bad, as bad men make many laws.

The sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.

Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all; if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in applying to it the readiest and the surest means of oppression.

Where power is absent we may find the robe of genius, but we miss the throne.