"Pleasure has its time; so, too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age, attend to thy salvation."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
"O unfortunates who sin without pleasure! in your errors be more reasonable; be, at least, fortunate sinners. Since you must be damned, be damned for amiable faults."
"All the passions die with the years; self-love alone never dies."
"The best written book is a receipt for a pottage."
"It does not depend upon us to avoid poverty, but it does depend upon us to make that poverty respected."
"Jest with life: for that only is it good."
"Heaven made virtue; man, the appearance."
"Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly."
"One dies twice: to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to love and to be loved is an insupportable death."
"Life is long enough for him who knows how to use it. Working and thinking extend its limits."
"I do not know in the whole history of the world a hero, a worthy man, a prophet, a true Christian, who has not been the victim of the jealous, of a scamp, or of a sinister spirit."
"Philosophers and men of letters have done more for mankind than Orpheus, Hercules, or Theseus; for it is more meritorious and more difficult to wean men from their prejudices than to civilize the barbarian: It is harder to correct than to instruct."
"A republic is not founded on virtue, but on the ambition of its citizens."
"The Devil and Love are but one."
"A witty saying proves nothing."
"All religions are more or less mixed with superstitions. Man is not reasonable enough to content himself with a pure and sensible religion, worthy of the Deity."
"All the reasoning of man is not worth one sentiment of woman."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
"The best way to become boring is to say everything."
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere."
"When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is metaphysics."
"We can not always oblige, but we can always speak obligingly."
"Laws should be clear, uniform, precise: to interpret them is nearly always to corrupt them."
"Labor is often the father of pleasure."