Must we, under the happy hope of a false tranquility, sacrifice to the people in power the public welfare, and under vain pretence of preserving the peace, abandon the empire to robbers who would plunder it

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.

By annihilating desires, you annihilate the mind.

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

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

The men of sense, the idols of the shallow, are very inferior to the men of passions. It is the strong passions which, rescuing us from sloth, impart to us that continuous and earnest attention necessary to great intellectual efforts.

Envy honors the dead in order to insult the living.