Now, you receive all your ideas; therefore you receive your wish, you wish therefore necessarily. The word "liberty" does not therefore belong in any way to your will....The will, therefore, is not a faculty that one can call free. A free will is an expression absolutely void of sense, and what the scholastics have called will of indifference, that is to say willing without cause, is a chimera unworthy of being combated.

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.

You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it.

Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them?

I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.