The world is old, but history is of yesterday.--_Melanges Historiques_.
If you would put to profit the present time, one must not spend his life
in propagating ancient fables.--_Ibid_.
A mature man who has serious business does not repeat the tales of his
nurse.--_Ibid_.
Search through all nations and you will not find one whose history does
not begin with stories worthy of the Four Sons of Aymon and of Robert
the Devil.--_Politique et Legislation._
Ancient histories are enigmas proposed by antiquity to posterity, which
understands them not--_Dict. Phil._ (Art. "Histoire").
A real fact is of more value than a hundred antitheses.--_Melanges
Historiques_.
I have a droll idea. It is that only people who have written tragedies
can throw interest into our dry and barbarous history. There is
necessary in a history, as in a drama, exposition, knotty plot, and
_denouement_, with agreeable episode.--_Corr. gen._ 1740.
They have made but the history of the kings, not that of the nation. It
seems that during fourteen hundred years there were only kings,
ministers, and generals among the Gauls. But our morals, our laws, our
customs, our intelligence--are these then nothing?--_Corr_., 1740.
Is fraud sanctified by being antiquated?--_Sottisier_.
I have ever esteemed it charlatanry to paint, other than by facts,
public men with whom we have had no connection.--_Corr. gen._, 1752.
If one surveys the history of the world, one finds weaknesses punished,
but great crimes fortunate, and the world is a vast scene of brigandages
abandoned to fortune.--_Essai sur les Moeurs_, c. 191.
Since the ancient Romans, I have known no nation enriched by
victories.--_Contant d' Orville_, i. 337.
To buy peace from an enemy is to furnish him with the sinews of
war.--_Ibid_, p. 334.
The grand art of surprising, killing, and robbing is a heroism of the
highest antiquity.--_Dial_. 24.
Murderers are punished, unless they kill in grand company to the sound
of trumpets; that is the rule.--_Dict. Phil_. (Art. "Droit").
We formerly made war in order to eat; but in the long run, all the
admirable institutions degenerate.--_Dial._ 24.
It suffices often that a mad Minister of State shall have bitten another
Minister for the rabies to be communicated in a few months to five
hundred thousand men.--_Ibid_.
In this world there (are) only offensive wars; defensive ones are only
resistance to armed robbers.--_Ibid._
Twenty volumes in folio never yet made a revolution. It is the portable
little shilling books that are to be feared. If the Gospel cost twelve
hundred sesterces, the Christian religion would never have been
established.--_Correspondence with D1 Alembert_, 1765.