A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
Brutes are deprived of the high advantages which we have; but they have some which we have not. They have not our hopes, but theyare without our fears; they are subject like us to death, but without knowing it; even most of them are more attentive than we to self-preservation, and do not make so bad a use of their passions.
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
The spirit of commerce is frugality, economy, moderation, labor, ponderance, tranquillity, order, and rule. So long as this spirit subsides, the riches it produces have no bad effect. The mischief is when excessive wealth destroys the spirit of commerce, then it is that the conveniences of inequality... are felt.
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
Power should be a check on power.
Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
They who love to inform themselves, are never idle. Though I have no business of consequence to take care of, I am nevertheless continually employed. I spend my life in examining things: I write down in the evening whatever I have remarked, what I have seen, and what I have heard in the day: every thing engages my attention, and every thing excites my wonder: I am like an infant, whose organs, as yet tender, are strongly affected by the slightest objects.
Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
An injustice to one is a threat made to all
Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.
There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.
When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread... and a thousand other things of the same kind.
Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
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