Nov 21, 1694 - May 30, 1778
French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade
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Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
Clever tyrants are never punished.
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
To hold a pen is to be at war.
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.
The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.
Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.
Injustice in the end produces independence.
It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.
The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
We are rarely proud when we are alone.
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
