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.

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

There is less harm to be suffered in being mad among madmen than in being sane all by oneself.

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

We are a free people; and now you have planted in our country the title deeds of our future slavery. You are neither god nor demon; who are you, then, to make slaves? Orou! You understand the language of these men, tell us all, as you have told me, what they have written on this sheet of metal: This country is ours. This country yours? And why? Because you have walked thereon? If a Tahitian landed one day on your shores, and scratched on one of your rocks or on the bark of your trees: This country belongs to the people of Tahiti - what would you think?

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

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.