“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 of intelligent beings.”

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

We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.

Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.

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.

The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.

The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.

When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.

Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

The less men think, the more they talk.

Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.

A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.

The spirit of commerce… renders every man willing to live on his own property…& prevents the growth of luxury.

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

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.

One’s intelligence may march about and about a problem, but the solution does not come gradually into view. One moment it is not. The next it is there.

Intelligent people tend to talk about the facts. They don’t sit around and call each other names. That’s what you can find on a third grade playground.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

The one thing that can be more disconcerting than intelligent hatred is demanding love.

The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

Personally, I’d never seen a graphic novel. I knew they existed because friends of mine like Jonathan Ross collect them and some very literate and intelligent people really rate the graphic novel as a form.

If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.

They say military have the so-called ‘secret intelligence’ – this amount of intelligence must be very secret, since I’ve never seen any intelligent military person, nor I have seen any sense in the bloody stupid wars.