Who is wiser: the man who plants flowers along life's way or the man who makes it bristle with thorns?

Hosts of merchants encumber the cities, and the streets are cluttered with solicitors who swarm without limit or purpose.

The Civilized… murder their children by producing too many of them without being able to provide for their well-being. Morality or theories of false virtue stimulate them to manufacture cannon fodder, anthills of conscripts who are forced to sell themselves out of poverty. This improvident paternity is a false virtue, the selfishness of pleasure.

The extension of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress.

Once upon a time people talked about the infallibility of the pope; today it is that of the merchant which they wish to establish.

Despots prefer the friendship of the dog, who, unjustly mistreated and debased, still loves and serves the man who wronged him.

Any civilized administration, however organized, prefers its own good to that of the people.