In the words of Voltaire:
Persistence with patience and prayer pays with profits, prosperity and peace of mind.
The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people.
If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart.
Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
Every abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself.
If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.
Common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence.
We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth.
All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.
Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.
Time is man's most precious asset. All men neglect it; all regret the loss of it; nothing can be done without it.
The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.
All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.
Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.
It is the first law of friendship that it has to be cultivated. The second is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected.
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because there is nothing to be gained by him.
In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.
The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.
Earth is an insane asylum, to which the other planets deport their lunatics.
I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race.
It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.
The most amazing and effective inventions are not those which do most honour to the human genius.
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men.
The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing.
Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it.
The more he became truly wise, the more he distrusted everything he knew.
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.
Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said.
The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor.
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft; but we do not steal that which is given to us.
The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else's eyes.
Where some states possess an army, the Prussian Army possesses a state.
True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others.
A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.
Present opportunities are not to be neglected; they rarely visit us twice.
History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.
Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.
I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.
Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.
We are obliged to place ourselves on the level of our age before we can rise above it.
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.
If there’s life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe’s insane asylum.
The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.
If mankind were born tomorrow it would divide into groups; each would scramble to invent their one and only god, and set about butchering each-other.
Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them.
The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.
Needless to say since Christ's expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die.
It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.
To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart.
Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are.
Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
Let us read, and let us dance — these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.
A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely to reconcile health with intemperance.
You have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you.
Dont think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money.
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.
Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked.
There is no such thing as an accident. What we call by that name is the effect of some cause which we do not see.
Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities.
Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.
This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.
We know that all the arts are brothers, that each of them illuminates another, and that a universal light results.
The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.
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