A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown.

Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.

There is no rapture in the love which is prompted by esteem; such affection is lasting, not passionate.

Civilization survives on the constant discovery of amity and an equal supply of damnation.

The wind of revolutions is not tractable.

A republic may be called the climate of civilization.

As we have said, robust souls are sometimes almost, but not entirely, overthrown by strokes of misfortune....Despair has steps leading upward. From total depression we rise to despondency, from despondency to affliction, from affliction to melancholy. Melancholy is a twilight state in which suffering transmutes into a somber joy....Melancholy is the enjoyment of being sad.