Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?

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

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.

The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which we do not want.

Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.

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.

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.