Voltaire

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

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

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.

Events tend to recur in cycles.

You don’t learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking and getting well hammered yourself.

The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.

It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit?

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

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

If there be three distinct and separate Persons, then three distinct and separate Substances. . . . And since the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God . . . then unless the Father, Son and Spirit are three distinct Nothings, they must be three distinct Substances, and consequently three distinct Gods.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.