In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.

Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone: but what we have requires no proof.

Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.

The great pleasure of life is doing for pleasure things I do not like to do.

A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.

All people are most credulous when they are most happy.

The real essence of work is concentrated energy - people who really have that in a superior degree by nature are independent of the forms and habits and artifices by which less able and less active people are kept up to their labors.