Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

I confess that my stomach does not take to this style of cooking. I cannot accept calves sweetbreads swimming in a salty sauce, nor can I eat mince consisting of turkey, hare, and rabbit, which they try to persuade me comes from a single animal... As for the cooks, I really cannot be expected to put up with this ham essence, nor the excessive quantity of morels and other mushrooms, pepper, and nutmeg with which they disguise perfectly good food.