It is the end. But of what? The end of France? No. The end of kings? Yes.

This book should be read as one would read the book of a dead man.

The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human race has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced.

Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibers. Take the cable thread by thread, take separately all the little determining motives, you break them one after another, and you say: that is all! Wind them and twist them together, they become an enormity.

The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human.

Women are more credulous than men.

It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive.... We must not resort to the flame where only light is required.