Voltaire

The post is the grand connecting link of all transactions, of all negotiations. Those who are absent, by its means become present; it is the consolation of life.

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.

We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work which proves that man was not born to rest.

Ideas are like beards men do not have them until they grow up.

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue at our peril risk and hazard.

God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

Paradise was made for tender hearts hell for loveless hearts.

England has forty two religions and only two sauces.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Present opportunities are not to be neglected they rarely visit us twice.

All people are equal it is not birth it is virtue alone that makes the difference.

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too

The passions are the winds which fill the sails of the vessel; they sink it at times, but without them it would be impossible to make way.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

Be bold proclaim it everywhere They only live who dare.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact.

Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast or of one thing too exclusively.

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

It is only through timidity that states are lost.

We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.

Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Let us cultivate our garden.

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.

A witty saying proves nothing.

The public is a ferocious beast one must either chain it or flee from it.

One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful but they may be equally free.

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

History should be written as philosophy.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while Nature cures the disease.

To succeed in this world, it is not enough to be stupid, you must be well-mannered.

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.

Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.

To hold a pen is to be at war.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

In the case of news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

Beauty pleases the eyes only; Sweetness of disposition charms the soul.

Common sense is not so common.

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

Almost all life depends on probabilities.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

Men use thought only to justify their wrong-doings, and words only to conceal their thoughts.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

?Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

The punishment of criminals should serve a purpose. When a man is hanged he is useless.

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.

Every man is guilty of all the good he didnt do.

I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.

I know of no great man except those who have rendered great services to the human race.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other's throats; but if you have thirty religions, they dwell in peace.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit money when there is no good money.

To the wicked everything serves as pretext.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

The best is the enemy of the good.

All men have equal rights to liberty to their property and to the protection of the laws.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

Every abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

All is for the best in the best of all possible ways.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.