There is no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended nature; there is a kind of I know not what congratulation in well-doing, that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a certain generous boldness that accompanies a good conscience.

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.

He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.

The concern that some women show at the absence of their husbands, does not arise from their not seeing them and being with them, but from their apprehension that their husbands are enjoying pleasures in which they do not participate, and which, from their being at a distance, they have not the power of interrupting.

How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.

Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.

To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down.