There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.

Whatever is enforced by command is more imputed to him who exacts than to him who performs.

A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.

In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.

Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals barbarians, in respect to the rulesof reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity.