You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

Historians are gossips who tease the dead

For can anything be sillier than to insist on carrying a burden one would continually much rather throw to the ground?

Love truth, and pardon error.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people.

One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact.