For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

The enjoyment of freedom which could be exercised without any motivation would be the real hallmark of a maniac.

There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.

Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?

At an early age I sucked up the milk of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Anacreon, Plato and Euripides, diluted with that of Moses and the prophets.

In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.