The people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived.

We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.

The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human heart.

General abstract truth is the most precious of all blessings; without it, man is blind; it is the eye of reason.

It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires, and who can doubt that the interest we have in admitting or denying the reality of the Judgement to come determines the faith of most men in accordance with their hopes and fears.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

To discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them, who had no affinity with our nature but knew it to the full, whose happiness was independent of ours, but who would nevertheless make our happiness his concern, who would be content to wait in the fullness of time for a distant glory, and to labour in one age to enjoy the fruits in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws.