Voltaire

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

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

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

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

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

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

A vow is a snare for sin.

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.

He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

Covetousness is the greatest of monsters, as well as the root of all evil.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

You are perfect. An exquisitely fine work of art, labor of love, suspended in silence. Bejeweled, trembling, kissed by a breeze, mesmerized by your beauty. You await in silence, beckoning me to a silken-wrapped slumber.

All I want to do is change the world.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.