Date: January 1762

"C’est lui qui porte le flambeau au fond de la caverne; c’est lui qui apprend à discerner les motifs subtils et déshonnêtes qui se cachent et se dérobent sous d’autres motifs qui sont honnêtes et qui se hâtent de se montrer les premiers. Il souffle sur le fantôme sublime qui se présente à l’entré...

— Diderot, Denis (1713-1784)

Date: 1764

"But behold, this soul of thought frequently has the ascendancy over the animal soul. The thinking soul orders its hands to grasp, and they grasp. It does not tell its heart to beat, its blood to run, its chyle to form; all these things happen without it: so here we have two perplexed souls which...

— Arouet, François-Marie [known as Voltaire] (1694-1778)

Date: 1764

"Nobody knows what really is the being called 'spirit', to which even you give the material name of 'spirit', which means wind."

— Arouet, François-Marie [known as Voltaire] (1694-1778)

Date: September 3, 1766

"Donner le change à nos passions par le goût des belles connaissances, c'est enchaîner les amours avec des liens de fleurs."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)

Date: 1772

"It will remind me of what I used to be, and Pride will have to come to a standstill at the threshold of my heart."

— Diderot, Denis (1713-1784)

Date: 1777

"The minds of the negroes are contracted; because slavery destroys all the springs of the soul."

— Raynal, Guillaume Thomas (1713-1796)

Date: 1780-85; in French, 36 vols. 1749-1788

"Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony."

— Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (1707-1788)

Date: 1787

"This was a ray of intelligence which pointed out to the discerning parent the path prescribed by nature."

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)

Date: 1787

"But her idleness led her into an error; for her mind, though inclined to laziness, sought for a more solid, and more active food."

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)

Date: 1787

"Thus our thoughts are our most sacred and dearest property; and to read a bit of paper, as you call it, that does not belong to us, that contains thoughts not addressed to us, is to do an act that has all the deformity of treason, meanness, and infamy; in fine, the most vile and dishonourable ac...

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)