“Write as if thou wert alone in the universe and hadst nothing to fear from the jealousies and prejudices of the people. Otherwise thou wilt miss thy purpose.”

—  Julien Offray de La Mettrie

Preface, Oeuvres philosophiques de Monsieur de La Mettrie (1764) as quoted by Paul Carus, The Mechanistic Principle and the Non-mechanical (1913) p. 102. https://books.google.com/books?id=wGNRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA102

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Julien Offray de La Mettrie42
French physician and philosopher 1709–1751

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