ThursdaySep 18, 2025
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
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.
Solemnity is the shield of idiots.
There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
Each citizen contributes to the revenues of the State a portion of his property in order that his tenure of the rest may be secure.
Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
The honor of the conquest is rated by the difficulty.
An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed A very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.
A good writer does not write as people write, But as he writes.
Virtue has need of limits.
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
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 one only wished to be happy, this could be easily Accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, And this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
Law should be like death, which spares no one.
Society is the union of men but not men themselves; the citizen may perish, but man remains.
There is no cruder tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
What the orators lack in depth, they give you in length.
The life of states is like that of men. The latter have the right of killing in self-defense; the former to make wars for their own preservation.
It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.
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