The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin.

To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.

He who has the base necessities of life should pay nothing; taxation on him who has a surplus may, if need be; extend to everything beyond necessities.

Each member of the community gives himself to it at the instant of its constitution, just as he actually is, himself and all his forces, including all goods in his possession.

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human heart.

The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural; it is neither tedious nor frivolous; it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation.