He who cannot shine by thought, seeks to bring himself into notice by a witticism.
The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic.
History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.
Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.
We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.
It has taken seas of blood to drown the idol of despotism, but the English do not think they bought their laws too dearly.
If it’s too silly to be said, it can always be sung.
If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero.
Needless to say since Christ’s expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die.
A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.
Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked.
Men appear to prefer ruining one another’s fortunes, and cutting each other’s throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.
Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce must not be reckoned.
I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths.
All the persecutors declare against each other mortal war, while the philosopher, oppressed by them all, contents himself with pitying them.
Let us meet four times a year in a grand temple with music, and thank God for all his gifts. There is one sun. There is one God. Let us have one religion. Then all mankind will be brethren.
Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life.
The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.
Every beauty, when out of it’s place, is a beauty no longer.
Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world.