Voltaire

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

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

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

It is not where you start but how high you aim that matters for success.

No question is so difficult to answer as that which the answer is obvious.

The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.

If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

Private men, in fine, are so much their own, that, paying common dues, they are sovereigns of all the rest. Yet the public must and will be served; and they that do it well, deserve public marks of honour and respect. To do so, men must have public minds, as well as salaries; or they will serve private ends at the public cost. Government can never be well administered, but where those intrusted make conscience of well discharging their places.

Who prays for Satan? Who, in 1,800 years, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy.

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

Use every distraction as an object of meditation and they cease to be distractions.

The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.