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.
[Wars]
C.: What, you do not admit there are just wars?
A.: I have never known any of the kind; to me it appears contradictory and impossible.
C.: What! when the Pope Alexander VI. and his infamous son Borgia pillaged the Roman States, strangled and poisoned the lords of the land, while according them indulgences: was it not permissible to arm against these monsters?