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We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's ...more

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No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

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Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

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

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Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these l...more

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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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Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man

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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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Such is the pure movement of nature prior to all reflection. Such is the force of natural pity, which the most depraved mores still have difficulty de...more

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The extreme inequality of our ways of life, the excess of idleness among some and the excess of toil among others, the ease of stimulating and gratify...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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Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered." (Bk2:8)