By annihilating desires, you annihilate the mind.

Pleasure and pain are the only springs of action in man, and always will be.

Must we, under the happy hope of a false tranquility, sacrifice to the people in power the public welfare, and under vain pretence of preserving the peace, abandon the empire to robbers who would plunder it

Harsh counsels have no effect they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil.

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it.

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.

Discipline is simply the art of making the soldiers fear their officers more than the enemy.

Virtue has many preachers, but few martyrs.

What makes men happy is liking what they have to do. This is a principle on which society is not founded

There is but one man who can believe himself free from envy and it is he who has never examined his own heart.

He who has no passion has no principal or motive to act.