No one is happy unless he respects himself.

Self-love is an instrument useful but dangerous; it often wounds the hand which makes use of it, and seldom does good without doing harm.

Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.

There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?

There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.

Your first duty is to be humane. Love childhood. Look with friendly eyes on its games, its pleasures, its amiable dispositions. Which of you does not sometimes look back regretfully on the age when laughter was ever on the lips and the heart free of care? Why steal from the little innocents the enjoyment of a time that passes all too quickly?

No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.