The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demigod.

The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant.

Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter.

What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them.

Constant happiness is the philosopher's stone of the soul.

God created woman to tame man.

Everything happens through immutable laws, ...everything is necessary... There are, some persons say, some events which are necessary and others which are not. It would be very comic that one part of the world was arranged, and the other were not; that one part of what happens had to happen and that another part of what happens did not have to happen. If one looks closely at it, one sees that the doctrine contrary to that of destiny is absurd; but there are many people destined to reason badly; others not to reason at all others to persecute those who reason.