The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe.

It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.

It is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him. Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both.

Everyone, without exception, is searching for happiness.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.