Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then abandon it.

All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions.... This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves.

The property of power is to protect.

Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.

An advocate who has been well paid in advance will find the cause he is pleading all the more just.

Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man.

Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions against the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act.