Voltaire

Clever tyrants are never punished.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

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

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

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

There’s much more stupidity than there is malice in the world.

Art is the path of the creator to his work.

What drives me to be who I am, to do all that I do, is not what words will be engraved for my epitaph. What drives me to be who I am, to do what I do, is not vanity, is not for adulation in the eyes of others. What drives me is my own desire to be better; to be happy. When I am dead and buried, the words above will not bring me back to life, I choose to live out my epitaph, and not just for it to be a collection of words someone has chosen to define me.

The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.

Hurricanes are named after people, baby, and I hope you know that falling in love with me will be so much more treacherous than boarding up the windows and waiting for me to pass.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with.

The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.

O imitators, you slavish herd!

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.

The good rain, like a bad preacher, does not know when to leave off.

There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrate to some stroke of the imagination.