Voltaire

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

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

As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.

To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.

The doctor learns that if he gets ahead of the superstitions of his patients he is a ruined man; and the result is that he instinctively takes care not to get ahead of them.

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

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

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.