Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.

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

You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals… What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained.

It is not the man who is beside himself, but he who is cool and collected,--who is master of his countenance, of his voice, of his actions, of his gestures, of every part of his play,--who can work upon others at his pleasure.

To describe women, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly.

I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.