Before receiving your instruction, I must tell you what happened to me one day. I had just had a closet built at the end of my garden. I heard a mole arguing with a cockchafer; 'Here's a fine structure,' said the mole, 'it must have been a very powerful mole who did this work.' 'You're joking,' said the cockchafer; 'it's a cockchafer full of genius who is the architect of this building.' From that moment I resolved never to argue.

Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

A good action is preferable to an argument.

I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests.

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

Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.