The earlier works of a man of genius are always preferred to the newer ones, in order to prove that he is going down instead of up.

War can only be qualified by its object, and there is neither foreign war nor civil war, there is only just or unjust war.

Youth, even in its sorrows, always has a brilliancy of its own.

There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God.

You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.

When a person opens a book, he can never be in prison.

I think, therefore I doubt.