It is one of man's curious idiosyncrasies to create difficulties for the pleasure of resolving them.

What is needed is not a revolution in the opposite direction, but the opposite of a revolution.

If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.

We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. The most wonderful aspect of the universal scheme of things is the action of free beings under divine guidance.

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

I don't know what a scoundrel is like, but I know what a respectable man is like, and it's enough to make one's flesh creep.

Man is insatiable for power; he is infantile in his desires and, always discontented with what he has, loves only what he has not. People complain of the despotism of princes; they ought to complain of the despotism of man.