Wine takes away reason, engenders insanity, leads to thousands of crimes, and imposes such an enormous expense on nations.

Nothing is more useful than wine for strengthening the body and also more detrimental to our pleasure if moderation be lacking.

Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep.

It is this earth that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy of man.

....shellfish are the prime cause of the decline of morals and the adaptation of an extravagant lifestyle.

We ought to be guarded against every appearance of envy, as a passion that always implies inferiority wherever it resides.

Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.