Luxury either comes of riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness.

They must know but little of mankind who can imagine that, after they have been once seduced by luxury, they can ever renounce it.

Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.

The man who has lived the longest is not he who has spent the greatest number of years, but he who has had the greatest sensibility of life.

From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live.

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

Do not judge, and you will never be mistaken.

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

General and abstract ideas are the source of the greatest errors of mankind.

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