You write your name in the snow Yet say nothing.

Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them. -Francois

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

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.

Our priests are not what a silly populace supposes; all their learning consists in our credulity.