Voltaire

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

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

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

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

America is another name for opportunity.

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen’s miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.

Fearful of missing anything, he read on, filled with this anticipation which was half terror, of coming upon something which would touch him, not simply touch him but lift him and carry him away.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone.

For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure –tangible material prosperity in this world -is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.

Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.