Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement.

The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.

Art is the employent of the powers of nature for an end.

They who know how to employ opportunities will often find that they can create them; and what we can achieve depends less on the amount of time we possess than on the use we make of our time.

I have a hundred times heard him say, that all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in a constantly increasing progression; that mankind have gone on adding trait after trait till they reached the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind could devise, and have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it.

A man of clear ideas errs grievously if he imagines that whatever is seen confusedly does not exist; it belongs to him, when he meets with such a thing, to dispel the midst, and fix the outlines of the vague form which is looming through it.

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit.