Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.
It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.
It is with books as with the fires of our grates, everybody borrows a light from his neighbor to kindle his own, which in turn is communicated to others, and each partakes of all.
It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes.
I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.
It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.