Julien Offray de La Mettrie

"efore Descartes, some of the ancients made the essence of matter consist in solid extension. But this opinion, of which all the Cartesians have made much, has at all times been victoriously combated..…"

"f we demonstrate this moving principle, if we show that matter, far from being as indifferent as it is supposed to be, to movement and to rest, ought to be regarded as an active, as well as a passive …"

"The soul is... but an empty word, of which no one has any idea, and which an enlightened man should use only to signify the part in us that thinks..."

"We know in bodies only matter, and we observe the faculty of feeling only in bodies: on what foundation then can we erect an ideal being, disowned by all our knowledge?"

"If one's organism is... the preeminent advantage, and the source of all others, education is the second. The best made brain would be a total loss without it..."

"Descartes, a genius made to blaze new paths and to go astray in them, supposed with some other philosophers that God is the only efficient cause of motion, and that every instant He communicates motio…"

"The ancients, persuaded that there is no body without a moving force, regarded the substance of bodies as composed of two primitive attributes. It was held that, through one of these attributes, this …"

"Let us... take in our hands the staff of experience... To be blind and to think that one can do without this staff is the worst kind of blindness."