I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.

Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others.

Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.

What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. All these revolutions show a continual tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings who follow one another, press forward, and vanish; a fleeting symmetry; the order of a moment. I reproached you just now with estimating the perfection of things by your own capacity; and I might accuse you here of measuring its duration by the length of your own days.

Whatever dressing one gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born.

First move me, astonish me, break my heart, let me tremble, weep, stare, be enraged-only then regale my eyes.

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.