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.

A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.

There is only one virtue, justice; only one duty, to be happy; only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.

The first promise exchanged by two beings of flesh was at the foot of a rock that was crumbling into dust; they took as witness for their constancy a sky that is not the same for a single instant; everything changed in them and around them, and they believed their hearts free of vicissitudes. O children! always children!

There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.

The bad gives rise to the good, the good inspires the better, the better produces the excellent, the excellent is followed by the bizarre

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