Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

To abstain that we may enjoy is the epicurianism of reason.

Whence do I get my rules of conduct? I find them in my heart. Whatever I feel to be good is good. Whatever I feel to be evil is evil. Conscience is the best of casuists.

What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?

Men, in general, are not this or that, they are what they are made to be.

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.

Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it.