“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can’t deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge, observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.

Distance is a great promoter of admiration.

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.

Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?

We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.