If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.

When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.

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.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

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

A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.

Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.