Voltaire

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

All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.

Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

Regimen is superior to medicine.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

A witty saying proves nothing.

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

The public is a ferocious beast -- one must either chain it up or flee from it.

Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.

If we can't find something pleasant, we will at least find something new.

Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.

Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies.

Love truth, and pardon error.

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

True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others.

Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.

Prejudice is opinion without judgement.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

The secret of being boring is to say everything.

The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.

It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.

Life resembles the banquet of Damocles; the sword is ever suspended.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

As long as there are fools and rascals, there will be religions.

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.

Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.

When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.

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

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.

I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.

Common sense is not so common.

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

I have lost the half of myself – a soul for which mine was made.

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give to the other.

God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

God is always on the side of the big battalions.

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

When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

All is for the best in the best of all possible ways.

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.

There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.

Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter.

Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.

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

When its a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

[Optimism is] the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.

We're neither pure; nor wise; nor good; we do the best we know.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life that he had wasted his time. It must be admitted that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men that the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship towers considerably above him who imagined innate ideas.