Voltaire

A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good.

We only half live when we only half think.

There are no sects in geometry.

Do you think... that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly?

Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are.

If we do not exert the right of eating our neighbor, it is because we have other means of making good cheer

The malevolence of men revealed itself to his mind in all of its ugliness

We are going to a new world... and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world.

A lady of honor may be raped once, but it strengthens her virtue.

It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes.

Los Padres have everything and the people have nothing; 'tis the masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part, I know nothing so divine as Los Padres who make war on Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors; who here kill Spaniards and at Madrid send them to Heaven.

Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter.

Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony such as never been heard in hell.

Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best.

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

The composition of a tragedy requires testicles.

It is up to us to cultivate our garden.

Now is not the time for making new enemies.

I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.

If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.

A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity

Who are you, Nature?<br />I live in you;<br />for fifty years I have been seeking you,<br />and I have not found you yet.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes. L'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs

All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon

Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value - zero.

There are men who can think no deeper than a fact.

Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.

Everything I see about me is sowing the seeds of a revolution that is inevitable, though I shall not have the pleasure of seeing it. The lightning is so close at hand that it will strike at the first chance, and then there will be a pretty uproar. The young are fortunate, for they will see fine things.

Persistence with patience and prayer pays with profits, prosperity and peace of mind.