Claude Adrien Helvetius Quotes

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

No nation has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment.

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.

Education made us what we are.

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

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

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

Genius is nothing but continued attention.

Virtue has many preachers, but few martyrs.

A man who believes that he eats his God we do not call mad; yet, a man who says he is Jesus Christ, we call mad.

Pleasure and pain are the only springs of action in man, and always will be.

By annihilating desires, you annihilate the mind.

He who has no passion has no principal or motive to act.

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

All men have an equal disposition for understanding.

What makes men happy is liking what they have to do. This is a principle on which society is not founded

The man who believes he can do it is probably right.

Discipline is simply the art of making the soldiers fear their officers more than the enemy.

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

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

Envy honors the dead in order to insult the living.

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.