Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth.

One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be idiocy because it has been able to appeal to the majority

Man may aspire to virtue, but he cannot reasonably aspire to truth.

If it were not for the government, we should have nothing to laugh at in France.

At the sight of what goes on in the world, the most misanthropic of men must end by being amused, and Heraclitus must die laughing.

We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm.

Love, a pleasant folly; ambition, a serious stupidity.