I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.

One must be stark mad, to believe that mankind can subsist without magistrates.

It is thus tolerance that is the source of peace, and intolerance that is the source of disorder and squabbling.

I get up and retire when I wish. I go out if I wish and I do not go out if I do not desire to do so, except for the two days on which I give lectures.

I am a good Protestant, and in the full sense of the term, for from the bottom of my soul, I protest against everything that is said, and everything that is done.

Do you doubt that the least effects of nature were not used as marks of the wrath of heaven? It was to the interest of pontiffs, priests, and augurs, as much as it is to the interest of lawyers and doctors that there should be lawsuits and sickness. No wonder they took care that the people should not grow slack in their religion.

Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.