“Power ought to serve as a check to power.”

The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.

Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.

The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.

The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.

For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.

No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.

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.

The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.

Man is a social animal formed to please in society.

Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.

The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.

Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.

As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.

Mediocrity is a hand-rail.

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.

Obama cool, but he ain’t sending me no free checks

Yes, there are constraints on the way the insiders use their power. There are ‘checks and balances,’ built into the constitution, for example.

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

Power should be a check on power.