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.

I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: "O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!" God granted it.

Virtue is debased by self-justification.

It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.

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

Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

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

Thought depends largely on the stomach. In spite of this, those with the best stomachs are not always the best thinkers.

All mortals are equal; it is not their birth,But virtue itself that makes the difference.

The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.

Ancient histories, as one of our wits has said, are but fables that have been agreed upon.

Use, do not abuse; as the wise man commands. I flee Epictetus and Petronius alike. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

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

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

A minister of state is excusable for the harm he does when the helm of government has forced his hand in a storm; but in the calm he is guilty of all the good he does not do.

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

All styles are good except the boring kind.

Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.

To hold a pen is to be at war.

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

Don't think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money.

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

Love is of all the passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the body.

The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.