Voltaire

Every great movement must experience three stages ridicule, discussion, adoption.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

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

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

A lucky person gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they’re about to do and thinks it still matters.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

It were Happy if we studied Nature more in natural Things; and acted according to Nature; whose rules are few, plain and most reasonable.

To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.

My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich, something for nothing.

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

What a lot of things there are a man can do without.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.