I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature.

The man who gets the most out of life is not the one who has lived it longest, but the one who has felt life most deeply.

At Genoa, the word Liberty may be read over the front of the prisons and on the chains of the galley-slaves. This application of the device is good and just. It is indeed only malefactors of all estates who prevent the citizen from being free. In the country in which all such men were in the galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed.

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

A citizen should render to the state all the services he can as soon as the sovereign demands them.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.