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

Which is the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which remains forever, or to save one's fatherland, which is perishable?

The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.

Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?

The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.

I feel, I think, I judge; therefore, a part of organized matter like me is capable of feeling, thinking, and judging.

Does anyone really know where they're going to?