"The climate, the religion, the laws, the maxims of government, the precedents, the morals, and the customs; all these things have a reciprocal influence on one another."

"The custom of the most civilized countries is to use the strongest and most active for the public service, and to put the weak and idle in the houses of correction."

"In a true state of nature, all men are born equal, but they cannot remain so. Society makes them lose their equality, and they can recover it only by the laws."

"If a republic is small, it is destroyed by a foreign force; if it is large, it is ruined by an internal imperfection."

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice."