Voltaire

Ice-cream is exquisite – what a pity it isn’t illegal.

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.

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

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

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

Nature has always had more force than education.

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits not because recompense is a pleasure for them, but because obligation is a pain.

Man has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights…sexual intercourse!…His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose.

The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.

You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.

Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted. He lived happily ever after.

Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.

Ahh, that mountain of self-discovery. Every time you have reached the summit, the clouds clear and you see there is still a ways to go. Don’t look up with thoughts of despair; thinking how much further do I have to go?! Take a moment and look back to see how far you have come. Don’t lose sight of your accomplishments, and focus on the continued commitment to self-discovery and development.

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

There is no one who does not exaggerate!