"Les médecins administrent des médicaments dont ils savent très peu, à des malades dont ils savent moins, pour guérir des maladies dont ils ne savent rien."

"L'étymologie est une science où les voyelles ne font rien et les consonnes fort peu de chose."

"O God, whom the world misjudges, and whom everything declares! listen to the last words that my lips pronounce! If I have wandered, it was in seeking Thy law. My heart may go astray, but it is full of Thee! I see, without alarm, eternity appear; and I can not think that a God who has given me life, that a God who has poured so many blessings on my days, will, now that my days are done, torment me for ever!"

"Jest with life: for that only is it good."

"It is strange that thought should depend upon the stomach, and still that men with the best stomachs are not always the best thinkers."

"Self-love is a balloon filled with wind, from which tempests emerge when pricked."

"Can we not seek the author of life but in the obscure labyrinth of theology?"

"Stupid stoics! you want to change man, and you destroy him!"

"Life is long enough for him who knows how to use it. Working and thinking extend its limits."

"It takes twenty years to bring man from the state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in his first infancy, to the point when his reason begins to dawn. It has taken thirty centuries to know his structure; it would take eternity to know something of his soul: it takes but an instant to kill him."

"None have lived without shedding tears."

"Well! sage Evhemere, what have you seen in all your travels?" "Follies!"

"This world is but a lottery of goods, of ranks, of dignities, of rights."

"The reasonable worship of a just God who punishes and rewards, would undoubtedly contribute to the happiness of men; but when that salutary knowledge of a just God is disfigured by absurd lies and dangerous superstitions, then the remedy turns to poison."

"In those countries where the morals are the most dissolute, the language is the most severe; as if they would replace on the lips what has deserted the heart."

"With the world, do not resort to injuries, but only to irony and gayety: injury revolts, while irony makes one reflect, and gayety disarms."

"All the reasoning of man is not worth one sentiment of woman."

"History is only a record of crimes and misfortunes."

"Why do we dream in our sleep if we have no soul? and, if we have one, how is it that dreams are so incoherent and extravagant?"

"Voltaire inscribed on a statue of Love: "Whoever thou art, behold thy master! He rules thee, or has ruled thee, or will rule thee!""

"Laws should never be in contradiction to usages; for, if the usages are good, the laws are valueless."

"Philosophers and men of letters have done more for mankind than Orpheus, Hercules, or Theseus; for it is more meritorious and more difficult to wean men from their prejudices than to civilize the barbarian : It is harder to correct than to instruct."

"The art of praising caused the art of pleasing."

"Society depends upon women. The nations who confine them are unsociable."

"All religions are more or less mixed with superstitions. Man is not reasonable enough to content himself with a pure and sensible religion, worthy of the Deity."

"O love! only a few rays of thy sacred fire radiate in this exhausted world!"

"Poetry is the music of the soul."

"All the passions die with the years; self-love alone never dies."

"If as much care were taken to perpetuate a race of fine men as is done to prevent the mixture of ignoble blood in horses and dogs, the genealogy of every one would be written on his face and displayed in his manners."

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures."

"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere."

"One dies twice: to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to love and to be loved is an insupportable death."

"Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy: a very stupid daughter of a very wise mother."

"Moderation is the pleasure of the wise."

"Satire lies about men of letters during their life, and eulogy after their death."

"Love is a canvas furnished by Nature, and embroidered by imagination."

"If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent one."

"Superstition excites storms; philosophy appeases them."

"Love is of all the passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head> the heart, and the senses."

"Labor is often the father of pleasure."

"It does not depend upon us to avoid poverty, but it does depend upon us to make that poverty respected."

"Our country is that spot to which our heart is attached."

"Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts."

"The best written book is a receipt for a pottage."

"We can not always oblige, but we can always speak obligingly."

"Virtue: a word easy to pronounce, difficult to understand."

"Dress changes the manners."