"Luxury, which nourishes a hundred poor people in our cities, starves ten thousand in the countryside."

"The general will is always right and tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always equally correct."

"The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade."

"A man who has been aroused by a woman's modesty will be more deeply moved by her charms."

"Nature has made me different from all other men. I alone know my heart, and I alone know men. He who dares to say that he is like me is a liar."