I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

The abuse of books kills science. Believing that we know what we have read, we believe that we can dispense with learning it.

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child--the most important lesson for every time of life--is this: 'Never hurt anybody.

To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties.

A man speaks of what he knows, a woman of what pleases her: the one requires knowledge, the other taste.

People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society.

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.