We find that the more a cultivated reason devotes itself to the aim of enjoying life and happiness, the further does man get away from true contentment.

Patience is the strength of the weak, impatience is the weakness of the strong.

Reason must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witness to answer questions which he has himself formulated.

By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man.

Freedom is the alone unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independence on the will and co-action of every other in so far as this consists with every other person's freedom.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

With men, the state of nature is not a state of peace, but war.