Voltaire

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities.

Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life … would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.

If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can let alone.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

If a man’s eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow.

No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

The person is a poor judge who by an action can be disgraced more in failing than they can be honored in succeeding.

A strenuous soul hates cheap success.