Voltaire

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

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

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

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

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

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

A man cannot free himself by any self-denying ordinances, neither by water nor potatoes, nor by violent possibilities, by refusing to swear, refusing to pay taxes, by going to jail, or by taking another man’s crops or squatting on his land. By none of these ways can he free himself; no, nor by paying his debts with money; only by obedience to his own genius.

I am the captain of my soul.

Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.

I am the flame, electric blue, lightening, razor-like, renewing my spirit. Heart beating in time to the earth’s rhythm and expanse of black ink sky, overreaching eternal. My fingertips spark with seeds of creation, fireworks coloring canvas, beckoned by this light that lifts me.

What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

Only trust theyself, and another shall noet betray thee

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

If you want to get what you want give up being right.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

A man who has no office to go to – I don’t care who he is – is a trial of which you can have no conception.

I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

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

Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity does best discover vice, but adversity does best discover virtue.