Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.
Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature and that man will be myself.
Nature never deceives us it is we who deceive ourselves.
Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.
No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.
Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.
Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.
The world of reality has its limits the world of imagination is boundless.
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
God made me and broke the mold.
How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?
Base souls have no faith in great individuals.
Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it.
We are born weak, we need strength helpless, we need aid foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education.
No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.