Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.

The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.

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.

The monster, fanaticism, still exists, and whoever seeks after truth will run the risk of being persecuted.

The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool.

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

It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms.