He who cannot shine by thought, seeks to bring himself into notice by a witticism.

I have chosen to be happy because it is goo for my health.

People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines.... It appears to me, besides, that such people can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths.

I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.