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

The movement of comets is part of the ordinary works of nature which, without regard to the happiness or misery of mankind, are transported from one part of the heavens to another by virtue of the general laws of motion.

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

There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.

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

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

No nations are more warlike than those which profess Christianity.