Date: 1721, 1722

"He forbad us the use of wine, which as it were buries our reason."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"He could foresee them but in two ways; by conjecture, which is irreconcileable with infinite foreknowledge; or otherwise he must see them as necessary effects, which infallibly follow a cause which produces them as infallibly; for the soul must be free upon this supposition; and yet in the act, ...

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"This noble passion is indeed always engraved upon their hearts; but imagination and education mould it a thousand ways."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"In vain do we seek in deserts for a state of ease; temptations follow us every where; our passions, represented by the dæmons, never wholly quit us: these monsters of the heart, these illusions of the mind, these vain phantoms of error and falsehood, appear continually to us, to mislead us, and ...

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"The soul of the sovereign is a mold in which all the rest are formed."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"The wife of a butcher, who happened to be present, took her part; and whilst one poured out a torrent of abuse against me, the other pelted me with stones as well as Dr.—, who was with me, who received a terrible blow upon the os frontal and os occipital, by which the seat of reason is very much...

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1692, 1724

"Oh Madam! cry'd the Count, (in a Rapture) judge better of a Man whom you have just loaded with your Favours, and do not suspect Ingratitude from a Heart, that bears your Image."

— Aulnoy, Madame d' (Marie-Catherine) (1650/51-1705)

Date: 1748, 1749

"In the fair sex, the soul adapts itself to the delicacy of constitution: thence flow that tenderness, that affection, those lively sentiments founded rather upon passion than reason; and in fine, those prejudices and superstitions whose impression is so hard to be effaced."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"These are the animals, that resemble man the most; for we observe likewise amongst them the same gradual analogy, in relation to the callous body, in which Lancisi had placed the seat of the Soul, before the late Monsieur de la Peyronnie, who has illustrated this opinion with a variety of experi...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"All this knowledge therefore, the vanity of which puffs up the giddy brain of our supercilious pedants, is nothing but a vast heap of words and figures, which form in the head the traces by which we distinguish and remember objects."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)