"Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions."

"It is much safer to be feared than loved."

"Men are more apt to forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony."

"He who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined; because that power has been effected either by industry or by force, and both of these are suspicious to the one who has been raised to powe…"

"He who desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with the assumption that all men are bad, and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it."