To abstain that we may enjoy is the epicurianism of reason.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

Our greatest evil flows from ourselves.

Let it not, therefore, be said that the Sovereign is not subject to the laws of his State; since the contrary is a true proposition of the right of nations, which flattery has sometimes attacked but good princes have always defended as the tutelary divinity of their dominions. How much more legitimate is it to say with the wise Plato, that the perfect felicity of a kingdom consists in the obedience of subjects to their prince, and of the prince to the laws, and in the laws being just and constantly directed to the public good!

But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.

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.