Too much apparatus, designed to guide us in experiments and to supplement the exactness of our senses, makes us neglect to use those senses...The more ingenious our apparatus, the coarser and more unskillful are our senses. We surround ourselves with tools and fail to use those which nature has provided every one of us.

Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it.

We cannot teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realising, on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his education.

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, and charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, civil as well as political.

If there wasn't a God we would have to invent one to keep people sane.