Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them.

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.

If we would destroy the Christian religion, we must first of all destroy man's belief in the Bible.

Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares absurd, beware, lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.

Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.