No government can exist without taxation. The money must necessarily be levied on the people; and the grand art consists of levying so as not to oppress.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Neither antiquity nor any other nation has imagined a more atrocious and blasphemous absurdity than that of eating God. This is how Christians treat the autocrat of the universe.

You will certainly grant me that neither antiquity nor whatever nation has devised a more repulsive and blasphemous absurdity than that of eating your God. This is the most disgusting dogma of Christian religion, the greatest insult to the Highest Being, the climax of madness and insanity.

One should never despair too soon.

Christianity is an old metaphysical fiction, stuffed with fables, contradictions and absurdities: it was spawned in the fevered imagination of the Orientals, and then spread to our Europe, where some fanatics espoused it, where some intriguers pretended to be convinced by it and where some imbeciles actually believed it.

Artillery adds dignity, to what would otherwise be an ugly brawl.