To laugh is to live profoundly.
. . . . we are a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow.
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.
Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?
Be good, and you will be lonesome, be lonesome and you will be free. Live a lie and you will live to regret it, that's what living is to me.
I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.
What is a habit? It’s just a shackle for ourselves.