There is no folly of which a man who is not a fool cannot get rid except vanity; of this nothing cures a man except experience of its bad consequences, if indeed anything can cure it.

It is not our criminal actions that require courage to confess, but those which are ridiculous and foolish.

With children use force; with men reason; such is the natural order of things. The wise man requires no law.

The most absolute authority is that which penetrates into a man's innermost being and concerns itself no less with his will than with his actions.

Rather suffer an injustice than commit one.

Ruthless man: you begin by slaying the animal and then you devour it, as if to slay it twice. It is not enough. You turn against the dead flesh, it revolts you, it must be transformed by fire, boiled and roasted, seasoned and disguised with drugs; you must have butchers, cooks, turnspits, men who will rid the murder of its horrors, who will dress the dead bodies so that the taste decieved by these disguises will not reject what is strange to it, and will feast on corpses, the very sight of which would sicken you.

Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.