Every country has the government it deserves.

Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its priests. To submit it to the individual discussion is to destroy it; it is given life only through the national mind, that is to say, by political faith, which is a creed.

There is no philosophy without the art of ignoring objections.

Man in general, if reduced to himself, is too wicked to be free.

False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing.

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.