There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.

A man has virtues enough if he deserves pardon for his faults on account of them.

Doubt everything at least once, even the sentence "Two times two is four."

I ceased in the year 1764 to believe that one can convince one’s opponents with arguments printed in books. It is not to do that, therefore, that I have taken up my pen, but merely so as to annoy them, and to bestow strength and courage on those on our own side, and to make it known to the others that they have not convinced us.

Much can be inferred about a man from his mistress: in her one beholds his weaknesses and his dreams.

The greater part of human misery is caused by indolence.

One of our forefathers must have read a forbidden book.