The superfluous, a very necessary thing. 

It is very strange that men should deny a creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels.

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

"If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.

One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.

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

I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc.

A single part of physics occupies the lives of many men, and often leaves them dying in uncertainty.

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

Quite a heavy weight, a name too quickly famous.

I have received, sir, your new book against the human species, and I thank you for it. You will please people by your manner of telling them the truth about themselves, but you will not alter them. The horrors of that human society-from which in our feebleness and ignorance we expect so many consolations-have never been painted in more striking colours: no one has ever been so witty as you are in trying to turn us into brutes: to read your book makes one long to go on all fours. Since, however, it is now some sixty years since I gave up the practice, I feel that it is unfortunately impossible for me to resume it: I leave this natural habit to those more fit for it than are you and I.

Man ought to be content, it is said; but with what?

Paradise on earth is where I am.

Where is the prince sufficiently educated to know that for seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm?

To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.

All of the other people have committed crimes, the Jews are the only ones who have boasted about committing them. They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture for wild beasts to fight in.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe...

May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?

Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

This body which called itself and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.

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

We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.

The best is the enemy of the good.

Go into the London Stock Exchange - a more respectable place than many a court - and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker.

Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.

If I had had more time, this letter would have been shorter.

The first who was king was a fortunate soldier: Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

It is a serious question among them whether they [Africans] are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything.

Life is just a notebook with blank pages. Every time we make a mistake, the pages get stained and living in it becomes impossible.

While loving glory so much how can you persist in a plan which will cause you to lose it?

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

Love truth, but pardon error.

Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees.

The necessity of speaking, the predicament of having nothing to say, and the desire for tact are three things that can turn the greatest man into a laughingstock.

If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

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.

Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.

If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?

Clever tyrants are never punished.

It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.

Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.

The king Frederic has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time.

It is the privilege of true genius, and certainly of the genius that opens a new road, to make without punishment great mistakes.