Much reading has brought upon us a learned barbarism.

The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.

Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.

Be attentive, feel nothing in vain, measure and compare: this is the whole law of philosophy.

I am confident of my ability to demonstrate that one can sometimes believe in something and yet not believe in it. Nothing is less fathomable than the systems that motivate our actions.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.