One wonders why there are so many women who follow Robespierre to his home, to the Jacobins, to the Cordeliers and to the Convention. It is because the French Revolution is a religion and Robespierre is one of its sects. He is a priest with his flock... Robespierre preaches, Robespierre censures, he is furious, serious, melancholic and exalted with passion. He thunders against the rich and the great. He lives on little and has no physical needs. He has only one mission: to talk. And he talks all the time.
Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de CondorcetI hope to see the bringing together of all the best educated people of the earth into a worldwide Congress of Scientists.
Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de CondorcetUnder the freest constitution ignorant people are still slaves.
Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de CondorcetAs the mind learns to understand more complicated combinations of ideas, simpler formulae soon reduce their complexity; so truths that were discovered only by great effort, that could at first only be understood by men capable of profound thought, are soon developed and proved by methods that are not beyond the reach of common intelligence. The strength and the limits of man
Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet