Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

As though God had turned away from the wise, and written his decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind!

Nothing in nature is by chance... Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.

The mind can only imagine anything, or remember what is past, while the body endures.

Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata [we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us].

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.