It is pure illusion to think that an opinion which passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false.
If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses, and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history.
In matters of religion, it is very easy to deceive a man and very hard to undeceive him.
There was no other God, religion, or lawful magistracy, than conscience, which teaches all men the precepts of Justice, to do no injury, to live honestly, and give everyone his due.
The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is not assurance of its truth.
The movement of comets is part of the ordinary works of nature which, without regard to the happiness or misery of mankind, are transported from one part of the heavens to another by virtue of the general laws of motion.
Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.
It is only common prejudice that induces us to believe that atheism is a fearful state.
I am a good Protestant, and in the full sense of the term, for from the bottom of my soul, I protest against everything that is said, and everything that is done.
No nations are more warlike than those which profess Christianity.
The furnace of affliction refines us from earthly drossiness, and softens us for the impression of God’s own stamp.
There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.
One must be stark mad, to believe that mankind can subsist without magistrates.
I get up and retire when I wish. I go out if I wish and I do not go out if I do not desire to do so, except for the two days on which I give lectures.
I mention this only to shew that the citations of the most judicious authors frequently deceive us, and consequently that prudence obliges us to examine quotations, by whomsoever alleged.
I lay down the Position, That whatever a Conscience well directed allows us to do for the Advancement of Truth, an erroneous Conscience will warrant for advancing a suppos’d Truth.
I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.
There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.