It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe...

I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc.

Love is of all the passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the body.

Ancient histories, as one of our wits has said, are but fables that have been agreed upon.

The king Frederic has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time.

The public is a ferocious beast: one must chain it up or flee from it.

Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

Man ought to be content, it is said; but with what?

All philosophical sects have run aground on the reef of moral and physical ill. It only remains for us to confess that God, having acted for the best, had not been able to do better.

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.