Happy the man who never puts on a face, but receives every visitor with that countenance he has on.

Let ideas establish their legitimate sway again in society, let life be fair and poetic, and the scholars will gladly be lovers, citizens, and philanthropists.

Men are respectable only as they respect.

Each philosopher, each bard, each actor has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself.

The only compensation which war offers for its manifold mischiefs, is in the great personal qualities to which it gives scope and occasion.

An empire is an immense egotism.

My good hoe as it bites the ground revenges my wrongs, and I have less lust to bite my enemies. In the smoothing the rough hillocks, I smooth my temper.