It is obvious that the most despotic forms of social organization would be suitable for inert men who are satisfied with the situation fate has placed them in, and that the most abstract form of democratic theory would be practicable among sages guided only by their reason. The only problem is to what degree it is possible to excite or to contain the passions without endangering public happiness.

I never was able to believe in the existence of next year except as in a metaphysical notion.

Conscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.

That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it.

The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies 'God in us.'

Love which is only an episode in the life of men, is the entire history of the life of women.

The thing that must be preserved in all situations whatever is the reputation of one's character.