Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.
There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.
As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.
You have to study a great deal to know a little.
The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.
There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.
Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.
Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans.
I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.
Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings?
