“The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.”

What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.

With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.

In the state of nature… all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.

Europe is a state with several provinces

One more organ or one less in our body would give us a different intelligence. In fact, all the established laws as to why our body is a certain way would be different if our body were not that way.

As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.

Each citizen contributes to the revenues of the State a portion of his property in order that his tenure of the rest may be secure.

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.

Love of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.

Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour’s reading would not dissipate.

Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.

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

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.

But then, being a sort of rebellious, philosophical thinker, I’m always looking for new ways to shake things up.

I’ve always been a very rebellious, philosophical person.

People have been talking about multiverses as a philosophical idea for a long time. But the current incarnations in physics

That’s an interesting philosophical question. When your boner goes away, is that one gone… forever?

People have been talking about multiverses as a philosophical idea for a long time. But the current incarnations in physics

There is in Albert Camus’ literary craftsmanship a seductive intelligence that could almost make a reader dismiss his philosophical intentions if he had not insisted on making them so clear.

This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.

The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful.