All the persecutors declare against each other mortal war, while the philosopher, oppressed by them all, contents himself with pitying them.

All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice.

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction.

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.