What but a pestilential vapour can hover over society when its chief director is only instructed in the invention of crimes, or the stupid routine of childish ceremonies?

Only that education deserves emphatically to be termed cultivation of the mind which teaches young people how to begin to think.

It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men.

Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.

Few, I believe, have had much affection for mankind, who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, and even the domestic brutes, whom they first played with.

Nature in everything demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.

It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!

Solitude and reflection are necessary to give to wishes the force of passions.

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.

[T]here is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.

There is no algorithm for creativity.

I am free to choose my own actions. Indeed, like everyone else, I must be so. A good act that is compelled is not goodness at all, but merely force.

We can always take but never give.

But you can only lie about who you are for so long without going crazy.

We all have one thing in common: Happy New Year! It's a clean slate.

Well, I was always... I used to get 100% in physics and chemistry and mathematics (well, maybe a couple of points off in mathematics), and that was in high school.

Take a walk on the wild side.

The only power you have on this planet is the power of your decisions.