Montesquieu — "I have never heard of anything so insolent as to propose to the English Parliame…"

"The people's deputies should not be chosen from the general body of the nation; but it is proper that in every considerable place a deputy should be elected by the inhabitants."

"It is not the people who are naturally corrupted, but the magistrates."

"It is not the young people that degenerate; they are only rather thoughtless: the old ones are corrupt."

"When the savages of Louisiana are desirous of fruit, they cut the tree to the root, and gather the fruit. This is an emblem of despotic government."

"To form a moderate government, it is necessary to combine the powers, to regulate them, to temper them, to set them in motion; to give, so to speak, a ballast to one, in order to enable it to resist a…"