We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.

Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.

Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.

In general, children, like men, and men, like children, prefer entertainment to education.

Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.

Who you are contributes to your poetry in a number of important ways, but you shouldn't identify with your poems so closely that when they are cut, you're the one that bleeds.

Nothing in life is guaranteed except change, but I guess that could change.

We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.

Keeping up with him would require running, and there is no dignity in running after any man for any reason, injured or not.

How can we lose when we're so sincere?

Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us.

To think is not enough, you must think of something.

So you think that hip-hop had it's start out in Queensbridge, If you popped that junk up in the Bronx you might not live.

The Lord speaks to us through the Scriptures and in our prayer. Let us learn to keep silence before him, as we meditate upon the Gospel.

I want people to think I'm sexy, but to know also that I've got an ordinary body and not feel intimidated.