The severity of penalties is only a vain resource, invented by little minds in order to substitute terror for that respect which they have no means of obtaining.

I cannot now change my style, which I acquired, as you can imagine, by dint of labour.

Politeness requires this thing; decorum that; ceremony has its forms, and fashion its laws, and these must always follow, never the promptings of our own nature.

The universe was born restless and has never since been still.

Luxury... corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness.

It is not the criminal things which are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and shameful.

From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live.