You will be amused when you see that I have more than once deceived without the slightest qualm of conscience, both knaves and fools.

Man is free; yet we must not suppose that he is at liberty to do everything he pleases, for he becomes a slave the moment he allows his actions to be ruled by passion.

The same principle that forbids me to lie does not allow me to tell the truth.

I am bound to add that the excess in too little has ever proved in me more dangerous than the excess in too much; the last may cause indigestion, but the first causes death.

The history of my life must begin by the earliest circumstance which my memory can evoke it will therefore commence when I had attained the age of eight years and four months.

Should I perchance still feel after my death, I would no longer have any doubt, but I would most certainly give the lie to anyone asserting before me that I was dead.

I have lived as a philosopher and die as a Christian.