The soul of a civilization is its religion, and it dies with its faith.

Historically the belief in heaven and the belief in utopia are like compensatory buckets in a well: when one goes down the other comes up. When the classic religions decayed, communistic agitation rose in Athens (430 B.C.), and revolution began in Rome (133 B.C.); when these movements failed, resurrection faiths succeeded, culminating in Christianity; when, in our eighteenth century, Christian belief weakened, communism reappeared. In this perspective the future of religion is secure.

Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.

It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

In its youth a people produce mythology and poetry; in its decadence, philosophy and logic.

There is hardly an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the present.

Cultivate your garden… Do not depend upon teachers to educate you … follow your own bent, pursue your curiosity bravely, express yourself, make your own harmony… In the end, education, like happiness, is individual, and must come to us from life and from ourselves. There is no way; each pilgrim must make his own path. "Happiness," said Chamfort, "is not easily won; it is hard to find it in ourselves, and impossible to find it elsewhere.