Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of losing it at last.

The highest, most varied and lasting pleasures are those of the mind.

Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image.

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.

To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym.

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.

Vulgar people take huge delight in the faults and follies of great men.