If I always appear prepared, it is because before entering an undertaking, I have meditated long and have foreseen what might occur. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and preparation

I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get.

We are born, we live, we die among supernatural.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

Equality should be the chief basis of the education of youth.

Music, of all the liberal arts, has the greatest influence over the passions, and it is that to which the legislator ought to give the greatest encouragement.

The true policy of government is to make use of aristocracy, but under the forms and in the spirit of democracy.