For, as I think I have said, I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.

Not all the subtilties of metaphysics can make me doubt a moment of the immortality of the soul, and of a beneficent Providence. I feel it, I believe it, I desire it, I hope it, and will defend it to my last breath.

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child--the most important lesson for every time of life--is this: 'Never hurt anybody.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

We cannot work for others without working for ourselves.

One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.

The French painter Rousseau was once asked why he put a naked woman on a red sofa in the middle of his jungle pictures. He answered, 'I needed a bit of red there.'