Victor Cousin

All men have an equal right to the free development of their faculties; they have an equal right to the impartial protection of the state; but it is not true, it is against all the laws of reason and equity, it is against the eternal nature of things.

All truly historical peoples have an idea they must realize, and when they have sufficiently exploited it at home, they export it, in a certain way, by war; they make it tour the world.

Ignorance is the primary source of all misery and vice.

The beautiful cannot be the way to what is useful, or to what is good, or to what is holy; it leads only to itself.

True philosophy invents nothing; it merely establishes and describes what is.