There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.

No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.

Almost all Christians being wretchedly enslaved to blindness and ignorance, which the priests are so far from preventing or removing, that they blacken the darkness, and promote the delusion: wisely foreseeing that the people (like cows, which never give down their milk so well as when they are gently stroked), would part with less if they knew more.

Eagles don't catch flies.

They may attack me with an army of six hundred syllogisms; and if I do not recant, they will proclaim me a heretic.

There are some whose only reason for inciting war is to use it as a means to exercise their tyranny over their subjects more easily. For in times of peace the authority of the assembly, the dignity of the magistrates, the force of the laws stand in the way to some extent of the ruler doing what he likes. But once war is declared then the whole business of state is subject to the will of a few ... They demand as much money as they like. Why say more?

You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.