Voltaire

I hate women because they always know where things are.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

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

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

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

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

A country-bred man can always learn to get on with city people, but a town-bred fellah never gets the real hang of the country. You can put city polish on a man, but by golly, it seems you can’t ever rub it off him.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologies. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought – with these I deal.

None of us should be defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done.

Whether he knew it or not, the life he lived was his penance. Punishing himself, for what he believes are his sins. Consciously or subconsciously, he creates the world he lives in. Never believing that he is deserving happiness, deserving joy. His self-destructive nature, in his eyes, and his eyes only, is justified. Everyone is deserving absolution, but he needs to understand, that he is the only one able to forgive himself.

It happened once that a youth and a maiden beheld each other in a public assembly for the first time

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs.

We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.

Do the thing we fear, and the death of fear is certain.

Always seeking acceptance from others, searching for belonging. Striving for individuality, yet wanting to fit in. Never understanding that acceptance for one’s own individuality make all of that redundant.