Burke said with a depth that it is impossible to admire enough that art is man's nature: yes, undoubtedly, man with all his affections, all his knowledge, all his arts, is truly the man of nature, and the weaver's web is as natural as the spider's.

Creating difficulties for himself for the pleasure of resolving them is a strange human mania.

Man is an enigma whose knot has not ceased to occupy observers. The contradictions that he contains astonish reason and impose silence on it. So what is this inconceivable being who carries within him powers that clash and who is obliged to hate himself in order to esteem himself?

Nations are barbarian in their infancy but not savage. The barbarian is a proportional mean between the savage and the citizen. He already possesses no end of knowledge: he has habitations, some agriculture, domestic animals, laws, a cult, regular tribunals; he lacks only the sciences.

To know the nature of man, the most direct and wisest way undoubtedly is to know what he has always been. Since when can theories be opposed to facts? History is experimental politics; this is the best or rather the only good politics.