Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state.
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It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
To the wicked everything serves as pretext.
Indeed history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
Time which alone makes the reputation of men ends by making their defects respectable.
It is the flash which appears the thunderbolt will follow.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
To the living we owe respect but to the dead we owe only the truth.
Weakness on both sides is as we know the motto of all quarrels.
By appreciation we make excellence in others our own property.
It is forbidden to kill, therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours kindle it at home communicate it to others and it becomes the property of all.
If there were no God it would be necessary to invent him.
The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification knowing without thinking merging finitude in infinity.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.
He was a great patriot a humanitarian a loyal friend, provided of course he really is dead.
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
Use do not abuse, neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
Froth at the top dregs at bottom but the middle excellent.
He is a hard man who is only just and a sad one who is only wise.
Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say, but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading a sermon or a didactic work.
When it is a question of money everybody is of the same religion.
