Voltaire

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

Dare to think for yourself.

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honor.

There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.

Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

Morality is suspecting other people of not being legally married.

Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

We are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspected.

Leave the rest to the gods.

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.

We are wiser than we know.