Luxury Ruins Republics; Poverty, Monarchies.

As Men Are Affected In All Ages By The Same Passions, The Occasions Which Bring About Great Changes Are Different, But The Causes Are Always The Same.

They Who Assert That A Blind Fatality Produced The Various Effects We Behold In This World Talk Very Absurdly; For Can Anything Be More Unreasonable Than To Pretend That A Blind Fatality Could Be Productive Of Intelligent Beings.

Men In Excess Of Happiness Or Misery Are Equally Inclined To Severity. Witness Conquerors And Monks! It Is Mediocrity Alone, And A Mixture Of Prosperous And Adverse Fortune That Inspire Us With Lenity And Pity.

Brutes Are Deprived Of The High Advantages Which We Have; But They Have Some Which We Have Not. They Have Not Our Hopes, But Theyare Without Our Fears; They Are Subject Like Us To Death, But Without Knowing It; Even Most Of Them Are More Attentive Than We To Self-preservation, And Do Not Make So Bad A Use Of Their Passions.

Liberty Itself Has Appeared Intolerable To Those Nations Who Have Not Been Accustomed To Enjoy It.