Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. .. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.

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

Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.

That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and does what he desires.

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.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.

Anticipation and Hope are born twins.