The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

The impossibility of outraging nature is the greatest anguish man can know.

I assumed that everything must yield to me, that the entire universe had to flatter my whims, and that I had the right to satisfy them at will.

Nothing we can do outrages Nature directly. Our acts of destruction give her new vigour and feed her energy, but none of our wreckings can weaken her power.

The completest submissiveness is your lot, and that is all.

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.

The primary and most beautiful of Nature's qualities is motion, which agitates her at all times, but this motion is simply a perpetual consequence of crimes, she conserves it by means of crimes only.