“In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something and none has too much.”

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

The imagination which causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages.

To do is to be.

The sociable man, always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinions of others and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgment.

If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?

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

To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.

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..

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

What good is it looking for our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves?

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.

One does not drink. One gives a kiss to his glass, and the wine returns a caress to you.

However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.

Laws and institutions, like clocks, must occasionally be cleaned, wound up, and set to true time.

The whole thing of life and all the answers to everything are in one divine law, Karma action and reaction.

There is no such thing as “natural law”: this expression is nothing but old nonsense… Prior to laws, what is natural is only the strength of the lion, or the need of the creature suffering from hunger or cold, in short, need.

In the ideal State laws are few and simple, because they have been derived from certainties. In the corrupt State laws are many and confused, because they have been derived from uncertainties.

Laws are like spider’s webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away.

After acknowledging that most law enforcement personnel are fair-minded and do a difficult job, it only takes one exception to create a terrible tragedy.

Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obey them.

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.