Voltaire

Ice-cream is exquisite – what a pity it isn’t illegal.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

My life is a struggle.

If people misunderstand you, do not worry…it is your voice that they hear, but what goes through their mind is…their own thoughts.

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.

How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.

Our most important task is to transform our consciousness so that violence is no longer an option for us in our personal lives, that understanding that a world of peace is possible only if we relate to each other as peaceful beings, one individual at a time.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.

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

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

The only reward of virtue is virtue the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Poets wish to profit or to please.

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.

A man’s interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself.