Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: 'My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.' This stranger is a theologian.

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

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.

Philosophy is as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism.

When shall we see poets born? After a time of disasters and great misfortunes, when harrowed nations begin to breathe again. And then, shaken by the terror of such spectacles, imaginations will paint things entirely strange to those who have not witnessed them.

You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.

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