"Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity."

"When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it."

"Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it."

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

"Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older."

"The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it."

"Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone."

"We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced."

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles."

"No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another."

"All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows."

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

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

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

"A feeble body weakens the mind."

"The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament."

"Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?"

"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 estate, is the gift of education."

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

"The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity."

"Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it."

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

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

"Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong."

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

"Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it."

"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains."

"I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described."

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

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

"However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once."

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

"Base souls have no faith in great individuals."

"God made me and broke the mold."

"It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can."

"Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices."

"Childhood is the sleep of reason."

"No man has any natural authority over his fellow men."

"We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man."

"Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death."

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

"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."

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

"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."

"The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences."

"I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about."

"You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one."

"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."

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

"I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different."