The greatest achievement of the human spirit is to live up to one's opportunities and make the most of one's resources.

The common excuse for those bringing misfortune on others is that they desire their good.

If it is true that vice can never be done away with, the science of government consists of making it contribute to the public good.

The generality of men are so bound within the sphere of their circumstances that they have not even the courage to get out of them through their ideas, and if we see a few whom, in a way, speculation over great things makes incapable of mean ones, we find still more with whom the practice of small things takes away the feeling for great ones.

To withdraw ourselves from the law of the strong, we have found ourselves obliged to submit to justice. Justice or might, we must choose between these two masters.

All that causes one man to differ from another is a very slight thing. What is it that is the origin of beauty or ugliness, health or weakness, ability or stupidity? A slight difference in the organs, a little more or a little less bile. Yet this more or less is of infinite importance to men; and when they think otherwise they are mistaken.

We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give.