"I have no more than twenty acres of ground," he replied, "the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children; and our labor keeps off from us the three great evils - boredom, vice, and want."

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.

Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.

We offer up prayers to god only because we have made him after our own image. We treat him like a pasha, or a sultan, who is capable of being exasperated and appeased.