Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them.
What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them.
We are rarely proud when we are alone.
He who doesn't have the spirit of his time, has all its misery.
Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here.
Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.