I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.

Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.

We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.

There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.

If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.

Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.

Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.

Peace is a natural effect of trade.

If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.

Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.

The less men think, the more they talk.

Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

The compass opened if I may so express myself the universe.

The corruption of every government begins nearly always with that of principles.

To become truly great one has to stand with people not above them.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

Fortune makes a fool of those she favors too much.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.

A good businessman never makes a contract unless he's sure he can carry it through, yet every fool on earth is perfectly willing to sign a marriage contract without considering whether he can live up to it or not.

The biggest fool in the world is he who merely does his work supremely well, without attending to appearance.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can't fool the neighbors.

Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.

Anyone who works is a fool. I don't work - I merely inflict myself upon the public.