“Our character is composed of our ideas and our feelings: and, since it has been proved that we give ourselves neither feelings nor ideas, our character does not depend on us. If it did depend on us, there is nobody who would not be perfect. If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.”

“It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.”

“A witty saying proves nothing.”

“The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.”

“Tears are the silent language of grief.”

“Theology is to religion what poisons are to food.”

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”

“I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health.”

“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”

“Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.”

“Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them.”

“In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.”

“Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.”

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

“No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking.”

“If there’s life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe’s insane asylum.”

“I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.”

“There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.”

“Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.”

“I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.”

“The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks.”

“Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies.”

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”

“Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination. “

“It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.”

“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.”

“Beware of the words ‘internal security,’ for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor.”

“It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.”

“We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.”

“The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.”

“One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence.”

“Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.”

“Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.”

“History is the study of the world’s crime.”

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

“It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother’s womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.”

“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.”

“All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers.”

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”

“To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”

“A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble.”

“I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher.”

“Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities.”

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

“If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.”

“Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”

“What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature.”

“I hate women because they always know where things are.”

“We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know.”

“Only your friends steal your books.”