Claude Adrien Helvetius Quotes

To prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.

Truth is a torch which gleams in the fog but does not dispel it.

There is but one man who can believe himself free from envy; and it is he who has never examined his own heart.

Discipline is, in a manner, nothing else but the art of inspiring the soldiers with greater fear of their officers than of the enemy. This fear has often the effect of courage: but it cannot prevail against the fierce and obstinate valor of people animated by fanaticism, or warm love of their country.

All men have an equal disposition for understanding.

Genius is nothing but continued attention.

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

By annihilating desires, you annihilate the mind.

Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers, which are always repulsed by the anvil.

The men of sense, the idols of the shallow, are very inferior to the men of passions. It is the strong passions which, rescuing us from sloth, impart to us that continuous and earnest attention necessary to great intellectual efforts.

Education made us what we are.

To be loved, we should merit but little esteem; all superiority attracts awe and aversion.

The degree of genius necessary to please us is pretty nearly the same proportion that we ourselves have.

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves: such a prohibition ought to fill them with disdain.

There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire with the same love for justice and virtue which men in general have for riches and honors ... But the number of these men is so small that I only mention them in honor of humanity.

Truth is the torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it.