If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.

I do not know is a phrase which becomes us.

Leave those vain moralists, my friend, and return to the depth of your soul: that is where you will always rediscover the source of the sacred fire which so often inflamed us with love of the sublime virtues; that is where you will see the eternal image of true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a holy enthusiasm.

There exists one book, which, to my taste, furnishes the happiest treatise of natural education. What then is this marvelous book? Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny, is it Buffon? No-it is Robinson Crusoe.

Every man having been born free and master of himself, no one else may under any pretext whatever subject him without his consent. To assert that the son of a slave is born a slave is to assert that he is not born a man.

The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.

The happiest is he who suffers least; the most miserable is he who enjoys least.