By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
The ear is the avenue to the heart.
When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit money when there is no good money.
Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.
The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.
