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.

Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees.

Let us help one another to bear our burdens.

But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.' 'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.

I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life that he had wasted his time. It must be admitted that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men that the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship towers considerably above him who imagined innate ideas.

God created sex. Priests created marriage.