Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.

Contact with the world either breaks or hardens the heart.

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.

A man is not necessarily intelligent because he has plenty of ideas, any more than he is a good general because he has plenty of soldiers.

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

Anyone whose needs are small seems threatening to the rich, because he's always ready to escape their control.

Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.