Most benefactors are like unskillful generals who take the city and leave the citadel intact.

Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.

We need to be just before we are generous, as we need shirts before ruffles.

If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.

Education must have two foundations --morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.

And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead (suicide note)

In great matters, men behave as they are expected to; in little ones, as they would naturally