"I hate Diderot; he is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a revolutionist, a believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted than Voltaire. Voltaire made sport of Needham, and he was wrong, for Needham's eels prove that God is useless.
A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies the fiat lux.
Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger; you have the world.
Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the Eternal Father?
The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop.
It is good for nothing but to produce shallow people, whose reasoning is hollow.
Down with that great All, which torments me! Hurrah for Zero which leaves me in peace!
Between you and me, and in order to empty my sack, and make confession to my pastor, as it behooves me to do, I will admit to you that I have good sense. I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity.
'Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars.
Renunciation; why?
Sacrifice; to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf.
Let us stick to nature, then.
We are at the top; let us have a superior philosophy.
What is the advantage of being at the top, if one sees no further than the end of other people's noses?
Let us live merrily.
Life is all.
That man has another future elsewhere, on high, below, anywhere, I don't believe; not one single word of it.
Ah! sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me; I must take heed to everything I do; I must cudgel my brains over good and evil, over the just and the unjust, over the fas and the nefas.
Why?
Because I shall have to render an account of my actions.