A whole nation cannot rise above itself.

Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved.

Laws are always unstable unless they are founded upon the manners of the nation; manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.

The greatest difficulty in antiquity with that of altering the law; among the moderns, it is that of altering the manners.