Use, do not abuse... neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.
What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.
I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.
Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
We are rarely proud when we are alone.
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.
Society therefore is as ancient as the world.
The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.
Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.