“A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.”

“Nothing is duller than a progression of common chords. One wants some contrast, which breaks up the clear white light and makes it iridescent.”

“Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.”

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, so all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals… What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to defer wise resolutions to the fiftieth or sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained.”

“There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.”

“Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others”

“For me, my thoughts are my prostitutes.”