Great men are meteors designed to burn so that earth may be lighted.

Obedience to public authority ought not to be based either on ignorance or stupidity.

Good and decent people must be protected and persuaded by gentle means, but the rabble must be led by terror.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.

One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.