Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

To hold a pen is to be at war.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

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

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

Nature has always had more force than education.

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

History should be written as philosophy.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

Common sense is not so common.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit money when there is no good money.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.