Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.
An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.
There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.
It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
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.
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.
People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
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 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.
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.
False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.
If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
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.
Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
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?
We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
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.
Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.