"Democracy and slavery are inseparable. Why. Democracy as it existed among the ancients was no more than government by a number of men large enough to be called the people. But this designation is false. The true people, in such a state, the greatest number, the majority belong to the class of slaves, and slavery inevitably develops in a country governed this way, because it is impossible that those who spend their time making laws can make shoes and clothes, plant crops, work fields, etc."

"The mind can only create errors. Truths are not created, they exist; one can only see them, disentangle them, discover them, and expose them."

"Anger makes us adroit."

"To seek wisdom rather than truth. It is more within our grasp."

"To compensate absence with memory."

"Divorce. Its existence and use should be determined only by the interests of the children."

"I love to see two truths at the same time. Every good comparison gives the mind this advantage."

"The imagination is the eye of the soul."

"One loves to say what he knows, the other loves to say what he thinks."

"The people. They know how to know, but not how to choose."

"They cannot accustom themselves to lacking nothing."

"The number of books is infinite."

"Here is the desert. In this silence, everything speaks to me: and in your noise, everything falls silent."

"The good is worth more than the best."

"Wisdom is the strength of the weak."

"Writing is closer to thinking than to speaking."

"Are you listening to the ones who keep quiet?"

"It is not facts, but rumors that cause emotions among the people. What is believed creates everything."

"The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress."

"Thought forms in the soul the same way clouds form in the air."

"He who has no poetry in himself will find poetry in nothing."

"To teach is to learn twice over."

"Le génie commence les beaux ouvrages, mais le travail seul les achève."

"To be capable of respect is, in these days, almost as rare as to be worthy of it."

"When I see young people such as those of our day, I think that Heaven wishes to destroy the world."

"All luxury corrupts either the morals or the taste."

"Good impulses are naught, unless they become good actions."

"Eyes raised towards Heaven are always beautiful, whatever they be."

"Pleasures are always children, pains always have wrinkles."

"It is easy to understand God as long as you don't try to explain him."

"Ask the young. They know everything."

"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."

"He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet."

"The direction of the mind is more important than its progress."

"When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees."

"God has commanded time to console the afflicted."

"We use up in the passions the stuff that was given us for happiness."

"Some find activity only in repose, and others repose only in movement."

"We comprehend the earth only when we have known heaven. Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma."

"Words, like glass, darken whatever they do not help us to see."