If I am often seen at the theatre, people will cease to notice me.

A people that is able to say everything, becomes able to do everything. The crowd which follows me with admiration, would run with the same eagerness were I marching to the Guillotine.

I saw the way to achieve all my dreams. . . . I would found a religion, I saw myself marching on the way to Asia, mounted on an elephant, a turban on my head, and in my hand a new Koran that I would have composed to suit my needs. In my enterprises I would have combined the experiences of the two worlds, exploiting the realm of all history for my own profit.

Nothing renders a nation so despicable as religious despotism.

More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.

Mahomet was a great man, an intrepid soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Bender [sic]; a great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, he revived his fatherland and created a new people and a new power in the middle of Arabia.