I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.

We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; one might call the faces at a large assembly of people a history of the human soul written in a kind of Chinese ideograms.

Much reading has brought upon us a learned barbarism.

We say that someone occupies an official position, whereas it is the official position that occupies him.

A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.