The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.

There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.

Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.

Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.

Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.

Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.

His hands would plait the priest's guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings.

If you want me to believe in God, you must make me touch him.

In order to shake a hypothesis, it is sometimes not necessary to do anything more than push it as far as it will go.

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.

Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.

Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you've got to keep your feet warm.

Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force truth upon our memory.

Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

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.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.