I had been brought up in a church which decides everything and permits no doubts, so that having rejected one article of faith I was forced to reject the rest.
I think it impossible that the great monarchies of Europe can last much longer.
The bigger a state becomes the more liberty diminishes.
Men will argue more philosophically about the human heart; but women will read the heart of man better than they.
The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human heart.
With children use force; with men reason; such is the natural order of things. The wise man requires no law.
The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.
To study men, we must look close by; to study man, we must learn to look afar; if we are to discover essential characteristics, we must first observe differences.
At sixteen, the adolescent knows about suffering because he himself has suffered, but he barely knows that other beings also suffer.
It is in man’s heart that the life of nature’s spectacle exists; to see it, one must feel it.
Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a wise man, the life and death of Jesus are those of a god.
Cities are the abyss of the human species.
The man who meditates is a depraved animal.
The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.
The strength of the people is effective only if it is concentrated; it evaporates and is lost when it is dispersed, just as gunpowder scattered on the ground ignites only grain by grain.
The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.
Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once.
Posterity is always just.
If there wasn’t a God we would have to invent one to keep people sane.
It has always pleased me to read while eating if I have no companion; it gives me the society I lack. I devour alternately a page and a mouthful; it is as though my book were dining with me.