Patriotism ruins history.
Legislators and revolutionaries who promise both equality and liberty are visionaries and charlatans.
Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and none happy when they are over.
Napoleon for the sake of a good name broke in pieces half the world.
Treat a person as they are, they will remain so. Treat a person the way that person can be and is capable of being and that person will become as he or she can be and should be.
God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.
We see only what we know.
Truth is a torch but a tremendous one. That is why we hurry past it, shielding our eyes, indeed, in fear of getting burned.
Ye great teachers: listen to what you say!
Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one’s self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
No one should be rich except those who understand it.
The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.
Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.
So long as you live and work, you will be misunderstood; to that you must resign yourself once and for all. Be silent!
The man of understanding finds everything laughable.
Words express neither objects nor ourselves.
Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us.
The people rate strength before everything.
Only law can give us freedom.
While man’s desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err.