All the maxims have been written. It only remains to put them into practice.

La vraie e loquence se moque de l'e loquence, la vraie morale se moque de la morale. True eloquence has notime foreloquence, true morality has no time for morality.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true and then show that it is.

There are vices which have no hold upon us, but in connection with others; and which, when you cut down the trunk, fall like the branches.

People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.

Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.

The gist is that good and evil are foreordained. What is foreordained comes necessarily to be after a prior act of divine volition...Rather, everything small and large is written and comes to be in a known and expected measure.