Voltaire

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

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

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

In the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am – unbound.

If you live for people’s acceptance, you’ll die from their rejections.

Think with your whole body.

We have all seen with a sense of nausea the abject, squalid, shameless avowal made in the Oxford Union. We are told that we ought not to treat it seriously. The Times talked of the childrens hour. I disagree. It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of Germany, Italy, and France when they read the message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England. Let them be assured that it is not the last word. But before they blame, as blame they should, these callow ill-tutored youths, they must be sure that they have not been set a bad example by people much older and much higher up.

If I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.

Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.