All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.

Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.

I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies it is the first law of nature.

The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

A woman can keep one secret – the secret of her age

Work banishes those three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty.

To be at peace in crime! ah, who can thus flatter himself.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age.

What will the preachers say? … to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike.

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.

We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.

He showed, in a few words, that it is not sufficient to throw together a few incidents that are to be met with in every romance, and that to dazzle the spectator the thought should...

You are very harsh.”I have seen the world.

One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion

At a great distance appeared with the same pomp the sheep of Thebes, the dog of Bubastis, the cat of Phoebe, the crocodile of Arsinoe, the goat of Mendes, and all the inferior gods of...

All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.

Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities

Antiquity is full of eulogies of another more remote antiquity

To succeed in chaining the multitude, you must seem to wear the same fetters

Independence in the end is the fruit of injustice.

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

Let us work without reasoning,’ said Martin; ‘it is the only way to make life endurable.

Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.

Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it.

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

All kinds are good except the kind that bores you.

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities – that is not to be taken seriously in politics.

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.

Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.

I hate women because they always know where things are.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

Everywhere the weak execrate the powerful, before whom they cringe; and the powerful beat them like sheep whose wool and flesh they sell.

Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.

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

The best is the enemy of the good.