Men speak from knowledge, women from imagination.
I have never thought, for my part, that man’s freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.
To renounce freedom is to renounce one’s humanity, one’s rights as a man and equally one’s duties.
Trust your heart rather than your head.
To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.
If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.
It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.
The man is best served who has no occasion to put the hands of others at the end of his own arms.
The writings of women are always cold and pretty like themselves. There is as much wit as you may desire, but never any soul.
What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political.
Every man having been born free and master of himself, no one else may under any pretext whatever subject him without his consent. To assert that the son of a slave is born a slave is to assert that he is not born a man.
Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man.
Every artists wants to be applauded.
Finance is a slave’s word.
Not all the subtilties of metaphysics can make me doubt a moment of the immortality of the soul, and of a beneficent Providence. I feel it, I believe it, I desire it, I hope it, and will defend it to my last breath.
In the North the first words are, Help me; in the South, Love me.
Self-love is an instrument useful but dangerous; it often wounds the hand which makes use of it, and seldom does good without doing harm.
Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent.
In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a gaurantee of impunity.
Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.