Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own place.

We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves, for they add to the state in which we are the passions of the state in which we are not.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past or the future.

That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature.