To amend mankind, moralists should show them man, not as he is, but as he ought to be.

When the sun shines on you, you see your friends. It requires sunshine to be seen by them to advantage!

Arles is certainly one of the most interesting towns I have ever seen, whether viewed as a place remarkable for the objects of antiquity it contains, or for the primitive manners of its inhabitants and its picturesque appearance.

A poor man defended himself when charged with stealing food to appease the cravings of hunger, saying, the cries of the stomach silenced those of the conscience.

We have a reading, a talking, and a writing public. When shall we have a thinking?

Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory . . .

Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection.