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. Lettres Persanes (1721)
No tyranny is more cruel than the one practiced in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice — when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves. Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1876)