The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.

Christians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them: experience has shown the error of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of the persecution of those Christians in France whose belief differed a little from that of the king. They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.