In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.

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

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

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

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.

But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious!

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?