Wisdom degenerates in governments as governments increase in age.

A single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrolled rabidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to the principles of liberty as that of a despotic monarch.

Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.

Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world, from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public characters.

They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know, namely, that government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.

As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of rights. He who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavor to disarm him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the robber becomes the legislator he believes himself secure.

The representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found.

It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.

There is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state. The construction of government ought to be such as to bring forward, by a quiet and regular operation, all that extent of capacity.