I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world.

The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live.

Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes; nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky.

It is equally pointless to weep because we won't be alive a hundred years from now as that we were not here a hundred years ago.

Tis the taste of effeminacy that disrelishes ordinary and accustomed things.

The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.