If the Supreme Being did not make the world better, it means that he could not do it this way.
If true happiness belongs to the wise man, it means that he is the only one from whom fate will not take anything.
If the public good does not make a rule out of moral justice, then it can make the law a weapon of political tyranny, as it has very often done.
To live is not to breathe, but to act. The longest lived is not the one who is a hundred years old, but the one who felt life the most.
Addiction to things that have no moral character does not harm liberty, nor does it give rise to vice; dependence on people, being unbridled, gives rise to everything.
Misfortune is undoubtedly a good teacher; but the lessons of this teacher cost so much, and the benefit derived from them costs so little.
Knowing what is good is more important than knowing a lot.
It is not ignorance that causes evil, but blindness and error. People go astray not because they don't know, but because they think they know everything.
Sometimes the shot misses its target but the intention cannot fail.
There are people buried at a hundred years old, but who are dead from birth.
The art of maximizing pleasure lies in the ability to be stingy with it.
He who is careful with promises, is more precise in fulfilling them.
He who wants to be free is free.
I know of only three means by which we can influence the morals of the people: the power of law, the power of public opinion, and the charm of satisfaction.
Youth is the time to acquire wisdom, and old age is the time to put it into practice.
We are born weak - we need strength; we are born helpless - we need help; we are born ignorant - we need wisdom. Everything we don't have at birth and can't do without, becoming mature, we get through education.
Let us not mix the ages, as we mix the seasons: we must be ourselves at all times, and not resist nature, for vain efforts consume our life and prevent us from making use of it. A bad deed torments us not immediately when it was done, but when, after a long time, you remember it because the memory of it does not fade.
He who does not fear death cannot be dishonest.
Never, say the philosophers, will the truth harm men: this is a serious proof that they do not tell the truth.
Nothing attracts more ingratitude than a favor for which no gratitude is sufficient.
Address the one you are educating according to age. Don't let it even occur to him that you have any power over him.
The first reward of justice is the consciousness of having acted justly.
The first rule: it is proper to the human heart to put itself not in the place of those among men who are happier than we are, but rather in the place of those who are more worthy of pity than ourselves.
The sadness, the longing, the regret, the despair of fleeting misfortunes that do not make a nest in the soul; and experience teaches us how deceptive is a bitter feeling, under the power of which we believe our misfortunes to be eternal. Life itself means nothing; its price depends on how we use it.
Praise corrupts those who love it.
Wealth is necessary, perhaps, to give a piece of bread to the poor; but perhaps if there were no wealth, there would be no poor.
Vanity - here is the source and beginning of all our passions; it is born with us and does not leave us until the last moments of life.
Vanity is very much like a balloon filled with air, from which a storm rushes out as soon as you prick it.
The greatest virtuous deeds were done for love of country.
The happiest is he who best endures pain; the most unhappy is he who feels the least pleasure.