Voltaire

Better is the enemy of good.

Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.

The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.

Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.

As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.

Gazing to the south, from the eastern peak, the moon appears through the raindrops.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged, must end in disappointment. If it be asked, what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to indulge, experience will quickly answer, that it is such expectation as is dictated not by reason, but by desire; expectation raised, not by the common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and the general rules of action to be broken.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

The fortune which nobody sees makes a person happy and unenvied.

If you want the moon, do not hide from the night. If you want a rose, do not hide from the thorns. If you want love, do not hide from yourself.

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.