Twenty-volume folios will never make a revolution. It’s the little pocket pamphlets that are to be feared.
Give me the patience for the small things of life, courage for the great trials of life. Help me to do my best each day and then go to sleep knowing God is awake.
We know that all the arts are brothers, that each of them illuminates another, and that a universal light results.
Every man can educate himself. It’s shameful to put one’s mind into the hands of those whom you wouldn’t entrust with your money. Dare to think for yourself.
Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.
Prejudice is opinion without judgement.
A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity.
I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.
Now is not the time for making new enemies.
To succeed in chaining the multitude, you must seem to wear the same fetters.
Which is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more deadly; for atheism inspires no bloody passion whereas fanaticism does; atheism is opposed to crime and fanaticism causes crimes to be committed.
Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
Let each of us boldly and honestly say: How little it is that I really know!
The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant.
A good action is preferable to an argument.
What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason.
Shakespeare is a drunken savage with some imagination whose plays please only in London and Canada.
Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes. L’histoire n’est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs.