Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715 – 1771)
French philosopher and littérateur.
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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 honours.
No nation has reason to regard itself superior to others by virtue of its innate endowment.
By annihilating the desires, you annihilate the mind. Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.
All men have an equal disposition for understanding.
The degree of genius necessary to please us is pretty nearly the same proportion that we ourselves have.
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.
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