Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.

What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!

Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.