There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings.
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.