Voltaire

In all the disputes which have excited Christians against each other, Rome has invariably decided in favor of that opinion which tended most towards the suppression of the human intellect and the annihilation of the reasoning powers.

There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics.

The most amazing and effective inventions are not those which do most honour to the human genius.

Prejudice is an opinion without judgment.

Love truth, and pardon error.

It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.

My life's dream has been a perpetual nightmare.

When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy.

The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters; always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous - cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity.

Why are the Jews hated? It is the inevitable result of their laws; they either have to conquer everybody or be hated by the whole human race...

There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them.

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion.

Villains are undone by what is worst in them, heroes by what is best.

History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.

History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.

You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.

God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions.

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.

Prejudice is opinion without judgement.

Inspiration: A peculiar effect of divine flatulence emitted by the Holy Spirit which hisses into the ears of a few chosen of God.

I envy animals for two things - their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them.

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

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

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

Shun idleness. It is rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.

Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties.

It is impossible to translate poetry. Can you translate music?

This is no time to make new enemies.

Earth is an insane asylum, to which the other planets deport their lunatics.

How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! how horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite.