“I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.”

A taste for ostentation is rarely associated in the same souls with a taste for honesty.

Girls should learn that so much finery is only put on to hide defects, and that the triumph of beauty is to shine by itself.

To renounce freedom is to renounce one’s humanity, one’s rights as a man and equally one’s duties.

We cannot teach children the danger of lying to men without feeling as men, the greater danger of lying to children.

Alas, it is when we are beginning to leave this mortal body that it most offends us!

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

I have never thought, for my part, that man’s freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.

It is a great evil for a Chief of a nation to be born the enemy of the freedom whose defender he should be.

Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.

Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?

I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.

If force compels obedience, there is no need to invoke a duty to obey, and if force ceases to compel obedience, there is no longer any obligation.

There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.

Quit thy childhood, my friend, and wake up!

Few people love with the violence they hate.

All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate. I choose love.

An intellectual hate is the worst.

In one consort there sat cruel revenge and rancorous despite, disloyal treason and heart-burning hate.

He who cannot hate the devil cannot love God.

Who hateth me but for my happiness? Or who is honored now but for his wealth? Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus, Than pitied in a Christian poverty.

I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.

Some folks rail against other folks, because other folks have what some folks would be glad of.