Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.

All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon

Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here.

Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce must not be reckoned.

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion.

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.

A historian has many duties... the first is not to slander; the second is not to bore