Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.

Answer me, you who believe that animals are only machines. Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all?

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.

If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.

The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

We have our arts, the ancients had theirs... We cannot raise obelisks a hundred feet high in a single piece, but our meridians are more exact.