Hope should no more be a virtue than fear; we fear and we hope, according to what is promised or threatened us.
The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.
The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.
Do you think... that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly?
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel that when we find one who is only weak, we are too happy.