Many intelligent people, when about to write . . . , force on their minds a certain notion about style, just as they screw up their faces when they sit for their portraits.

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

Everyone should study at least enough philosophy and belles-lettres to make his sexual experience more delectable.

Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.

Some people read only because they are too lazy to think.

Men still have to be governed by deception.

Imagine the world so greatly magnified that particles of light look like twenty-four-pound cannon balls.