Envy honors the dead in order to insult the living.

Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil.

To be loved, we should merit but little esteem; all superiority attracts awe and aversion.

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain.

Discipline is simply the art of making the soldiers fear their officers more than the enemy.

Discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring the soldiers with greater fear of their officers than of the enemy. This fear has often the effect of courage: but it cannot prevail against the fierce and obstinate valor of people animated by fanaticism, or warm love of their country.

What makes men happy is liking what they have to do. This is a principle on which society is not founded