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

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

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.

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

The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual.

There's a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.

A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.