Your first duty is to be humane. Love childhood. Look with friendly eyes on its games, its pleasures, its amiable dispositions. Which of you does not sometimes look back regretfully on the age when laughter was ever on the lips and the heart free of care? Why steal from the little innocents the enjoyment of a time that passes all too quickly?

This dog, which, although no beauty, was of an uncommon breed, I had made my friend and companion; and it certainly deserved the name better than the majority of those who had assumed it.

Do you not know...that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not taught at all?

It is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry majority goes in need of necessities.

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

In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.

The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.