Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.

Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed.

Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher.

Shun idleness. It is rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.