If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.
According as each has been educated, so he repents of or glories in his actions.
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more easily than their words.
Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.
The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.
Let valour end my life!
Your senses are reeling all the time. Finally you find something to write and the very next day you go out and see something else which totally contradicts what you've written and every conclusion you've come to.
A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse.