Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it... Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

There is not a Musselman alive who would not imagine that he was performing an action pleasing to God and his Holy Prophet by exterminating every Christian on earth, while the Christians are scarcely more tolerant on their side.

Doctors are always working to preserve our health and cooks to destroy it, but the latter are the more often successful.

I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

We swallow with one gulp the lie that flatters us, and drink drop by drop the truth which is bitter to us.

Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.