The social compact sets up among the citizens as equality of such kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights.

Never exceed your rights, and they will soon become unlimited.

No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

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

A child who passes through many hands in turn, can never be well brought up. At every change he makes a secret comparison, which continually tends to lessen his respect for those who control him, and with it their authority over him. If once he thinks there are grown-up people with no more sense than children the authority of age is destroyed and his education is ruined.