Do you not know...that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not taught at all?

Leave those vain moralists, my friend, and return to the depth of your soul: that is where you will always rediscover the source of the sacred fire which so often inflamed us with love of the sublime virtues; that is where you will see the eternal image of true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a holy enthusiasm.

All through life a man has need of a counsellor and guide.

In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something and none has too much.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

The science of government is only a science of combinations, of applications, and of exceptions, according to times, places and circumstances.

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.