Life is strewn with so many dangers, and can be the source of so many misfortunes, that death is not the greatest of them.

Tragedy warms the soul, elevates the heart, can and ought to create heroes. In this sense, perhaps, France owes a part of her great actions to Corneille.

The practice of law sharpens the mind by making it narrow.

War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.

Everything is more or less organized matter. To think so is against religion, but I think so just the same.

When I give a minister an order, I leave it to him to find the means to carry it out.

An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.