Controversial Sayings

I conceive slavery to be such a thing as is odious to the God of love.

I have conquered for myself, but I have conquered for Russia.

The three greatest follies of mankind are: love, ambition, and the desire to govern.

The strong eat the weak. That is the law of nature.

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.

I am a slave of God, but also a sovereign of my own will.

All men are therefore equal, not in the sense that they are all alike, but in the sense that they all have the same rights and duties.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State 'What does it matter to me?' the State may be given up for lost.

Cogito, ergo sum. (I think, therefore I am.)

Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.

For a man who wishes to make a profession of good in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are only rather thoughtless: the old ones are corrupt.

The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatever.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

I can think of nothing else than this machine.

The being who can govern itself, has an empire which the most despotic monarch cannot boast.

For I assure you, I never did set the King's Highness's pleasure above my conscience.

There are some people who, if they don't get a little drunk, say nothing at all worth hearing.

All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

The African is lazy, crafty, negligent, and governed by caprice.