Every country has the government it deserves.

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

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

Genius does not seem to derive any great support from syllogisms. Its carriage is free; its manner has a touch of inspiration. We see it come, but we never see it walk.

A child is an angel dependent on man

In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.

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.