[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread... and a thousand other things of the same kind.

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.

There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.

If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.

I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.