“To write a love letter, you have to start, without knowing, what you want to say, and end, without knowing what you have said.”

“Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well, that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one’s life. At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this, the most important knowledge.”

“To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.”

“With regard to equality, this word must not be understood to mean that degress of power and wealth should be exactly the same, but rather that with regard to power, it should be incapable of all violence and never exerted except by virtue of status and the laws; and with regard to wealth, no citizen should be so opulent that he can buy another, and none so poor that he is constrained to sell himself.”

“Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man”

“From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live; and, as at the instant of birth we partake of the rights of citizenship, that instant ought to be the beginning of the exercise of our duty.”

“Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.”