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.

The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards.

The French, for example, are a contemptible nation.

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.

There is one further distinguishing characteristic of man which is very specific indeed and about which there can be no dispute, and that is the faculty of self-improvement - a faculty which, with the help of circumstance, progressively develops all our other faculties.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

A person who can break wind is not dead.