In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.

Reverie is not a mind vacuum. It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul.

The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.

Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.

A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.

Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.

Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans.

A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.

Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason...

The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams.

The pleasure of criticizing robs us of the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.

The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.

One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.

As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

A man can keep another’s secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.

To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.

There are only three events in a man’s life; birth, life, and death; he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.

The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury...

This great misfortune – to be incapable of solitude.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should...

A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.

If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.

The object of war is victory; that of victory is conquest; and that of conquest preservation.

The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

You have to study a great deal to know a little.

Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late.

Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.

The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know.

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.

The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.

Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.

Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.

Ideas are refined and multiplied in the commerce of minds. In their splendor, images effect a very simple communion of souls.

Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come to being.

The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.

God is related to the universe, as Creator and Preserver; the laws by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them.

Literary imagination is an aesthetic object offered by a writer to a lover of books.

It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues.

People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.

The words of the world want to make sentences.