I maintain, in truth, That with a smile we should instruct our youth, Be very gentle when we have to blame, And not put them in fear of virtue's name.
Even Rome cannot grant us a dispensation from death.
They [zealots] would have everybody be as blind as themselves: to them, to be clear-sighted is libertinism.
There is no protection against slander.
The envious will die, but envy never.
It may cost me twenty thousand francs; but for twenty thousand francs, I will have the right to rail against the iniquity of humanity, and to devote to it my eternal hatred.