Men despise religion; they hate it, and fear it is true.

Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it, if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.

That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature.

You corrupt religion either in favour of your friends, or against your enemies.

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine.

Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.

The power of kings is founded on the reason and on the folly of the people, and specially on their folly.

Grace is indeed needed to turn a man into a saint; and he who doubts it does not know what a saint or a man is.

Each one is all in all to himself; for being dead, all is dead to him.

We are only falsehood, duplicity, contradiction; we both conceal and disguise ourselves from ourselves.