“I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.”

The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix

Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.

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.

A rational army would run away.

Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.

The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.

In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.

If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.

I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.

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.

Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.

Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am – and what I need – is something I have to find out myself.

Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.

The most beautiful description of a woman is by understatement.

Family does not necessarily mean blood relatives but often a description of a community, organisation or nation.

Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!

One cannot be too careful in the selection of adjectives for descriptions. Words or compounds which describe precisely, and which convey exactly the right suggestions to the mind of the reader, are essential.

It was an unbelievable experience! The brakes, the g-forces and the power of the engine are beyond description.

One of the best descriptions of the type of writer I am was given by Tom Paulin, who described himself as a ‘binge’ writer – like a binge drinker. I go on binges.