“Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.”

Solemnity is the shield of idiots

Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.

The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.

Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.

The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.

The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.

For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.

No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.

Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance… the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.

The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.

Man is a social animal formed to please in society.

Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.

The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.