Voltaire

Injustice in the end produces independence.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.

The sky was the color of hard crimson, dripping down a canvas, the moon splashed silver across red. Her soothing balm healing my soul in swathes of calmness, I breathe in her tides and let my body be washed ashore, lying in the sands of eternity.

The intuitive recognition of the instant, thus reality… is the highest act of wisdom.

Beauty is the mark God sets on virtue. Every natural action is graceful; every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

We live thick and are in each other’s way, and stumble over one another, and I think we thus lose some respect for one another.

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.

The masses have no habit of self reliance or original action.

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious – except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.

Courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destiny.

Let the stoics say what they please, we do not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and the appetite is keen.