Voltaire

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

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

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

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.

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

She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

The reward of one’s duty is the power to fulfill another.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

A hen is only a egg’s way of making another egg.

He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.

They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.

The seven deadly sins… food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven millstones from Man’s neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the millstones are lifted.

Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.

He will be loved when dead, who was envied when he was living.