Nearly always, so as to live at peace with ourselves, we disguise our own impotence and weakness as calculation and policy; it is our way of placating that half of our being which is in a sense a spectator of the other.

No duty, however, binds us to these so-called laws, whose corrupting influence menaces what is noblest in our being.

Art for art's sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not its own. (1804)

The people who, in order to enjoy the liberty which suites them, resort to the representative system, must exercise an active and constant surveillance over their representatives, and reserve for themselves...the right to discard them if they betray their trust, and to revoke the powers which them might have abused.

Woe to the man who in the first moments of a love-affair does not believe that it will last forever! Woe to him who even in the arms of some mistress who has just yielded to him maintains an awareness of trouble to come and foresees that he may later tear himself away!

There are things one does not say for a long time, but, once they are said, one never stops repeating them.

Every time government attempts to handle our affairs, it costs more and the results are worse than if we had handled them ourselves.