Bad company is as instructive as licentiousness. One makes up for the loss of one's innocence with the loss of one's prejudices.
Gaiety is a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.
The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.
All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs.
There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.
There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.
His hands would plait the priest's guts, if he had no rope, to strangle kings.
The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
We are far more liable to catch the vices than the virtues of our associates.
The blood of Jesus Christ can cover a multitude of sins, it seems to me.
Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.
Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.
The best mannered people make the most absurd lovers.
The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
I can be expected to look for truth but not to find 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.
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.
Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure, in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.
Isn't it better to have men be ungrateful, than to miss a chance to do good?
It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.
It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true will is a product of desire.
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey.
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European they are good or bad.
No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
