Nature clasps all her creatures in a universal embrace; there is not one of them which she has not plainly furnished with all means necessary to the conservation of its being.

The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.

It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us; our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light.

Lucius Arruntius killed himself, he said, to escape both the future and the past.

This very Rome that we behold deserves our love ...: the only common and universal city.

The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.

There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)