"To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written. Jean-Jacques Rousseau"

"The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it."

"A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please."

"Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself"

"People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little."

"Most people believe that the longer you let these things go, the more likely you are to have something go wrong."

"Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases."

"Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse."

"Refiners had every incentive to get back up because there was a lot of money to be made."

"We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them."

"Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well."

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

"Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger."

"At sixteen, the adolescent knows about suffering because he himself has suffered, but he barely know that other being also suffer; seeing without feeling is not knowledge"

"I have suffered too much in this world not to hope for another."

"Do not judge, and you will never be mistaken."

"Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to save it."

"Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."

"Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it"

"The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man."

"Whoever blushes confesses guilt, true innocence never feels shame."

"How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?"

"Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards."

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

"Gasoline consumption over the past 4 weeks has been 2.4 percent above prior-year levels, on average, suggesting momentum continues to build ahead of the summer driving seasons."

"Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves."

"As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor."

"The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless."

"Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers."

"Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is."

"Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect."

"Great men never make bad use of their superiority. They see it and feel it and are not less modest. The more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies."

"The person who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance."

"Do not judge, and you will never be mistaken"

"Free people, remember this maxim: We may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost."

"Truth is no road to fortune"

"We do not know what is really good or bad fortune"

"Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being."

"Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome."

"Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voice of the body"

"Childhood is the sleep of reason."

"To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know"

"Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions of the body."

"When a man dies he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime"

"Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excess"

"I have suffered too much in this world not to hope for another"

"To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties"

"I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects."

"I may be no better, but at least I am different."

"I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself."