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

I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. It does not behoove us, who were only savages and barbarians when these Indians and Chinese peoples were civilized and learned, to dispute their antiquity.

Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

It is ourselves alone that make our days lucky or unlucky. Away, then, with a vain prejudice, the invention of the priesthood, which has been transmitted by our ancestors to an ignorant people.

Opinion is called the queen of the world; it is so, for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to gradually drive away the usurper.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him