There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.

Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.

The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards.

Supreme happiness consists in self-content; that we may gain this self-content, we are placed upon this earth and endowed with freedom.

My bad head cannot adjust itself to the way things are.... If I want to depict spring, it has to be in wintertime; if I want to describe a beautiful landscape, I must be enclosed within walls; and I have said a hundred times that if I were put in the Bastille, there I would paint a picture of liberty.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.

The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows corrupt.