The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.

The ideal of beauty is simplicity and tranquility.

He who cannot love must learn to flatter.

Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them.

Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want.

There is nothing more frightful than for a teacher to know only what his scholars are intended to know.

If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.