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A taste for ostentation is rarely associated in the same souls with a taste for honesty

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Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

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I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted...without havi...more

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It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

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...an animal, at the end of a few months, is what it will be all its life; and its species, at the end of a thousand years, is what it was in the firs...more

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From this moment there would be no question of virtue or morality; for despotism cui ex honesto nulla est spes, wherever it prevails, admits no other ...more

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The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, wa...more

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The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder ...more

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Happy am I, for every time I meditate on governments, I always find new reasons in my inquiries for loving my own country.

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To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sent...more

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I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who ...more

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If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.

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Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered." (Bk2:8)