Voltaire

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

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.

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

My finger can point to the moon, but my finger is not the moon. You don’t have to become my finger, nor do you have to worship my finger. You have to forget my finger, and look at where it is pointing.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

Shut your mouth, close your lips, and say something!

The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

Tear thyself from delay.

Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.