Voltaire

Better is the enemy of good.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.

When it comes to the story of my heart, I am the villain, locking it away; denying its right be free. The chains are tight, restricting its growth; long enough to see through the window of opportunity, but the only escape it has, is via the pen. Why do I deny myself the opportunities? I know it comes from a place of protection, but also of fear. I think my heart has grown a resentment because of this betrayal, and has decided, enough is enough.

There isn’t a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.

One farmer says to me, ‘You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;’ and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.

Worthless people love only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

He tosses aside his paint-pots and his words a foot and a half long.

I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

If you have nothing to say, say nothing.

The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means – one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.