Whenever an important event, a revolution, or a calamity turns to the profit of the church, such is always signalised as the Finger of God.

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

Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.

Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?

To a toad what is beauty? A female with two lovely pop-eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly, and green spotted back.

Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them