In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.

It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.

I do not correct my first imaginings by my second--well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth.

Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.

I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.