They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings?

If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.

Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.

Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.

Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

The object of war is victory; that of victory is conquest; and that of conquest preservation.

Peace is a natural effect of trade.

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans.

The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

You have to study a great deal to know a little.

We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.