Calumny is like the wasp which worries you, and which it is not best to try to get rid of unless you are sure of slaying it; for otherwise it returns to the charge more furious than ever.

All passions are exaggerated, otherwise they would not be passions.

Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

His passions make man live, his wisdom merely makes him last.

Tragedy has the great moral defect of giving too much importance to life and death.

Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.

We justly consider women to be weaker than ourselves, and yet we are governed by them.