History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.

Faith consists in believing not what seems true, but what seems false to our understanding.

A woman can keep one secret the secret of her age.

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.

There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so prodigiously surpasses man in friendship, and nail him down to a table, and dissect him alive to show you the mezaraic veins... Answer me, Machinist, has Nature really arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may be incapable of suffering?

You see, Mademoiselle, I have experience, I know the world. To pass the time, why don't you ask every passenger to tell you his life's story? And if there is a single one among them who has never cursed his life, who has not often told himself that he was the unhappiest of men, then you may throw me overboard, headfirst!

If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.