What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.

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

The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.

We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.

Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour's reading would not dissipate.

I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.

The state is the association of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and the man remain.