Only passions, and great passions, can raise the soul to great things. Without them there is no sublimity, either in morals or in creativity. Art returns to infancy, and virtue becomes small-minded.

To be born in imbecility, in the midst of pain and crisis; to be the plaything of ignorance, error, need, sickness, wickedness, and passions; to return step by step to imbecility, from the time of lisping to that of doting; to live among knaves and charlatans of all kinds; to die between one man who takes your pulse and another who troubles your head; never to know where you come from, why you come and where you are going! That is what is called the most important gift of our parents and nature. Life.

Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?

The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.

If there are one hundred thousand damned souls for one saved soul, the devil has always the advantage without having given up his son to death.

If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.

I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.