French Political Philosopher (1689 – 1755).
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman…because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
Weak minds exaggerate too much the injustice done to the Africans.
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
There are countries where the excess of heat enervates the body, and renders men so slothful and dispirited that nothing but the fear of chastisement can oblige them to perform any laborious duty: slavery is there more reconcilable to reason; and the master being as lazy with respect to his sovereign as his slave is with regard to him, this adds a political to a civil slavery.
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.
There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude…we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.
Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune. The state of slavery is in its own nature bad. It is neither useful to the master nor to the slave; not to the slave, because he can do nothing through a motive of virtue; nor to the master, because by having an unlimited authority over his slaves he insensibly accustoms himself to the want of all moral virtues, and thence becomes fierce, hasty, severe, choleric, voluptuous, and cruel. … where it is of the utmost importance that human nature should not be debased or dispirited, there ought to be no slavery. In democracies, where they are all upon equality; and in aristocracies, where the laws ought to use their utmost endeavors to procure as great an equality as the nature of the government will permit, slavery is contrary to the spirit of the constitution: it only contributes to give a power and luxury to the citizens which they ought not to have.
Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance…the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.