The education of life perfects the thinking mind, but depraves the frivolous.

Men do not change; they unmask themselves.

New doctrines ever displease the old. They like to fancy that the world has been losing wisdom, instead of gaining it, since they were young.

No nation has the right to bring about a revolution, even though such a change may be most urgently needed, if the price is the blood of one single innocent individual.

nothing is so horrifying as the possibility of existing simply because we do not know how to die.

[Ridicule] laughs at all those who see the earnestness of life and who still believe in true feelings and in serious thought ... It soils the hope of youth. Only shameless vice is above its reach.

The study of history, it seems to me, leads to the conviction that all important events tend toward the same end - the civilization of mankind.