Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Our character is composed of our ideas and our feelings: and, since it has been proved that we give ourselves neither feelings nor ideas, our character does not depend on us. If it did depend on us, there is nobody who would not be perfect. If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing

The Jews are of all peoples the grosses, the most ferocious, the most fanatical, and the most absurd.

Almost all life depends on probabilities.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.