The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous.
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.
He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.
Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?
In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.
When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself.
I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
Error flies from mouth to mouth, from pen to pen, and to destroy it takes ages.
Virtue debases itself in justifying itself.
Almost all life depends on probabilities.
Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
We cannot wish for that we know not.
What can we say with certainty?
We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.
We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.