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

There is only one virtue, justice; only one duty, to be happy; only one corollary, not to overvalue life and not to fear death.

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

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

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.

There comes a moment during which almost every girl or boy falls into melancholy; they are tormented by a vague inquietude which rests on everything and finds nothing to calm it. They seek solitude; they weep; the silence to be found in cloister attracts them: the image of peace that seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself; and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish.

One must be oneself very little of a philosopher not to feel that the finest privilege of our reason consists in not believing in anything by the impulsion of a blind and mechanical instinct, and that it is to dishonour reason to put it in bonds as the Chaldeans did. Man is born to think for himself.