They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive...

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude… we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman… because I...

The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens...

Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.

Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

There is no original truth, only original error.

A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those...

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.

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.