No nation has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment. - Claude Adrien Helvétius

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain.

The degree of genius necessary to please us is pretty nearly the same proportion that we ourselves have.

Discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring the soldiers with greater fear of their officers than of the enemy. This fear has often the effect of courage: but it cannot prevail against the fierce and obstinate valor of people animated by fanaticism, or warm love of their country.