We never, then, love a person, but only qualities.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

When malice has reason on its side it becomes proud, and parades reason in all its splendour.

For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.

What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, imbecile worm of the earth; depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error; the pride and refuse of the universe!

Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind.

Physical science will not console me for the ignorance of morality in the time of affliction. But the science of ethics will always console me for the ignorance of the physical sciences.

Those honour Nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything, even on theology.

It is right that what is just should be obeyed; it is necessary that what is strongest should be obeyed.

How vain painting is-we admire the realistic depiction of objects which in their original state we don't admire at all.