“…when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.”

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.

We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.

Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.

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.

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.

Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.

In the matter of dress one should always keep below one’s ability.

That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.

It is unreasonable … to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.

A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.

I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself.

Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.

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.

Christianity … that musty old theology, which already has its grave clothes on, and is about to be buried… A wall of Bible, brimstone, church and corruption has hitherto hemmed women into nothingness.

It’s not that women are less corruptible than men are, it’s that women have had less chance to become corrupt.

Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds.

Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.

Our government is built upon the vote. But votes that are purchasable are quicksands, and a government built on them stands upon corruption and revolution.

Women, in general, are not part of the corruption of the past, so they can give a new kind of leadership, a new image for mankind.

Government ought to be all outside and no inside. Everybody knows that corruption thrives in secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.