It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. |
The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death. |
In general, the art of government
consists in taking as much money as possible
from one party of the citizens to give to the other. |
The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor. |
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. |
All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws. |
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all. |
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. |
What is not in nature can never be true. |
The monster, fanaticism, still exists, and whoever seeks after truth will run the risk of being persecuted. |
...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. |
Let the laws be clear, uniform and precise; to interpret laws is almost always to corrupt them. |
It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. |
I may not agree with what you say, but to the death I will defend your right to say it. |
The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination. |
Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others to persecute those who do reason. |
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value -- zero. |
History is fables agreed upon. |
Your book is dedicated
by the soundest reason.
You had better get out of France
as quickly as you can. |
What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the first law of nature. |
