Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

The famous physician Dumoulin said when dying, 'I leave two great physicians behind me, simple food and pure water.'

One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact.

Hope should no more be a virtue than fear; we fear and we hope, according to what is promised or threatened us.

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.

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

Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the fanatics: they are sick men in delirium who want to chastise their doctors. Let us assuage their ills, and never embitter them, and let us pour drop by drop into their souls the divine balm of toleration, which they would reject with horror if it were offered to them all at once.