What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order.

It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.

Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.

What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. All these revolutions show a continual tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings who follow one another, press forward, and vanish; a fleeting symmetry; the order of a moment. I reproached you just now with estimating the perfection of things by your own capacity; and I might accuse you here of measuring its duration by the length of your own days.

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?

The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.