“The real world has its limits; the imaginary world is infinite. Unable to enlarge the one, let us restrict the other, for it is from the difference between the two alone that are born all the pains which make us truly unhappy.”

It is pity in which the state of nature takes the place of laws, morals and virtues, with the added advantage that no one there is tempted to disobey its gentle voice.

There is no evildoer who could not be made good for something.

My birth was my first misfortune.

I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.

The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? the state of nature from which he has been removed? imagine, wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home.

Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.

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.

We’re products of this world we were born into. We all battle our own demons. Everyone is troubled in the dark, but, please just stop & think about the babies. They’re gonna be here long after we leave.

America was born a Christian nation.

Poetry is only born after painful journeys into the vast regions of thought.

Whenever I hear people discussing birth control, I always remember that I was fifth.

When I was born, I was effectively dead. Weird, I know. The doctors couldn’t get any reaction from me, so I had to be brought round, and although it seemed like I was okay, there were underlying problems.

Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page

Where you have come from is why you are going places.

Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.