Every numerous assembly is a mob; everything there depends on instantaneous turns.
Where princes are concerned, a man who is able to do good is as dangerous and almost as criminal as a man who intends to do evil.
What is necessary is never a risk.
Of all the passions, fear weakens judgment most.
Nothing sways the stupid more than arguments they can’t understand.
Weak souls always set to work at the wrong time.
There are no small steps in great affairs.
If you have to make an unpopular speech, give it all the sincerity you can muster; that’s the only way to sweeten it.
Nothing indicates the soundness of a man’s judgment so much as knowing how to choose between two disadvantages.
Most men only commit great crimes because of their scruples about petty ones.
The most mistrustful are often the greatest dupes.
The man who can own up to his error is greater than he who merely knows how to avoid making it.
Love is like those second-rate hotels where all the luxury is in the lobby.
Fish is meant to tempt as well as nourish, and everything that lives in water is seductive.
Man has the right to deal with his oppressors by devouring their palpitating hearts.
It is the height of stupidity to claim that men who for a thousand years have had the power to berate us, to fleece us and to oppress us with impunity, will now agree, with good grace, to be our equals.
Five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom and happiness.
In a few days, I will have them all guillotined in Paris.
To form a truly free constitution, that’s to say, truly just and wise, the first point, the main point, the capital point, is that all the laws be agreed on by the people, after considered reflection, and especially having taken time to see what’s at stake...
How could liberty ever establish itself amongst us? Apart from a few tragic scenes, the revolution has been nothing but a web of farcical scenes.