29 Quotes by Pierre Bayle

If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses, and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history.

It is pure illusion to think that an opinion that passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false.

It is thus tolerance that is the source of peace, and intolerance that is the source of disorder and squabbling.

The antiquity and general acceptance of an opinion is not assurance of its truth.

There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.

Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.

I am a good Protestant, and in the full sense of the term, for from the bottom of my soul, I protest against everything that is said, and everything that is done.

I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.

I mention this only to shew that the citations of the most judicious authors frequently deceive us, and consequently that prudence obliges us to examine quotations, by whomsoever alleged.