Men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent.

I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little important and on top of this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my hope.

Meslier was the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the Christian religion.

History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

Those who are absent, by its means become present; it [mail] is the consolation of life.