The vote is a trust more delicate than any other, for it involves not just the interests of the voter, but his life, honor and future as well.Collection: Future
He who receives money in trust to administer for the benefit of its owner, and uses it either for his own interest or against the wishes of its rightful owner, is a thief.Collection: Trust
Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive.Collection: Men
There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so.Collection: Happiness
Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness.Collection: Famous
Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.Collection: Happiness
Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever.Collection: Men
A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.Collection: Poetry
Every human being has within him an ideal man, just as every piece of marble contains in a rough state a statue as beautiful as the one that Praxiteles the Greek made of the god Apollo.
Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.
We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political state that we profit from.
A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.
Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all.
An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life.
But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. what greed and privilege to build up over whole centuries the indignation of a pious spirit, with its natural following of oppressed souls, will cast down with a single shove.
Just as he who gives his life to serve a great idea is admirable, he who avails himself of a great idea to serve his personal hopes of glory and power is abominable, even if he too risks his life.
Like stones rolling down hills, fair ideas reach their objectives despite all obstacles and barriers. It may be possible to speed or hinder them, but impossible to stop them.
Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist.
Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making.
Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity.
To busy oneself with what is futile when one can do something useful, to attend to what is simple when one has the mettle to attempt what is difficult, is to strip talent of its dignity.
Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.
Culture, which makes talent shine, is not completely ours either, nor can we place it solely at our disposal. Rather, it belongs mainly to our country, which gave it to us, and to humanity, from which we receive it as a birthright.
The wretch who lives without freedom feels like dressing in the mud from the streets Those who have you, o Liberty, do not know. you. Those who do not have you should not speak of you, but win you.
If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.
But when women are moved and lend help, when women, who are by nature calm and controlled, give encouragement and applause, when virtuous and knowledgeable women grace the endeavor with their sweet love, then it is invincible.