Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers.

Let man reawake and consider what he is compared with the reality of things; regard himself lost in this remote corner of Nature; and from the tiny cell where he lodges, to wit the Universe, weigh at their true worth earth, kingdoms, towns, himself. What is a man face to face with infinity?

The world is satisfied with words, few care to dive beneath the surface.

The art of subversion, of revolution, is to dislodge established customs by probing down to their origins in order to show how they lack authority and justice.

What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.