To be born in imbecility, in the midst of pain and crisis; to be the plaything of ignorance, error, need, sickness, wickedness, and passions; to return step by step to imbecility, from the time of lisping to that of doting; to live among knaves and charlatans of all kinds; to die between one man who takes your pulse and another who troubles your head; never to know where you come from, why you come and where you are going! That is what is called the most important gift of our parents and nature. Life.

Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.

How easy it is to tell tales!

Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence; they have relegated him to a sanctuary; the walls of the temple restrict his view; he does not exist outside of it.

One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it

I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.

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