Passions destroy more prejudices than philosophy does.

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.

The world is the house of the strong. I shall not know until the end what I have lost or won in this place, in this vast gambling den where I have spent more than sixty years, dice box in hand, shaking the dice.

How easy it is to tell tales!

Distance is a great promoter of admiration.

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

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.