Voltaire

I hate women because they always know where things are.

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

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.

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

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self.

Man – a creature made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.

Well, dinner would have been splendid!

Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

I believe in Michelangelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen.

Humility like the darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.