Happiness and unhappiness are in the heart and spirit of each one of us: If you feel unhappy, then place yourself above that and act so that your happiness does not get to be dependent on anything.

I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.

What right can give anyone authority to inflict torture upon a citizen when it is still unknown whether he is innocent or guilty?

Experience shows that the frequent use of severe punishment has never rendered a people better. The death of a criminal is a less effective means of restraining crimes than the permanent example of a man deprived of his liberty during the whole of his life to make amends for the injury he has done to the public.

to tempt and be tempted are closely allied; and in spite of all the finest moral maxims buried in the mind, when emotion interferes, when feeling makes its appearance, one is already much further involved that one realizes, and I have still not learnt how to prevent its appearance.

I do not love strife, because I have always found that in the end each remains of the same opinion.

Power without a nation's confidence is nothing.