In vain do we seek tranquility in the desert; temptations are always with us; our passions, represented by the demons, never let us alone: those monsters created by the heart, those illusions produced by the mind, those vain specters that are our errors and our lies always appear before us to seduce us; they attack us even in our fasting or our mortifications, in other words, in our very strength.

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.

Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.

Law should be like death, which spares no one.

Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.