Voltaire

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.

Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

Be true to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant to break the monotony of a decorous age.

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

Short words are the best and old words when short are best of all.

Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation.

To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.