“A feeble body weakens the mind.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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?”

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

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

“Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.”

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

“Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.”

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

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

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

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

“I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.”

“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.”

“Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.”

“It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.”

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

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

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.”

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

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

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

“No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.”

“Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.”

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

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

“Religious persecutors are not believers, they are rascals.”

“Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.”

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

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

“The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.”

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

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”

“Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.”

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