“Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves.”

“Atheism is aristocratic the idea of a great Being that watches over oppressed innocence and punishes triumphant crime is altogether popular. ”

“The general will rules in society as the private will governs each separate individual.”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”

“Death is softer by far than tyranny.”

“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.”

“He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third.”

“Since the beginning of time, the ignorant have always screamed the loudest...They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now after all these years, mankind had finally managed ...”

“I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.”

“At least if you were ignorant, you could do what you wanted, you had no idea what had been achieved in the past. You were free, instead of chewed at by bleeding impotence, dissolved away like a pea...”