The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and...

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out

The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks.

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities

But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his...

God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.

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

I do not know by what power I think; but well I know that I should never have thought without the assistance of my senses. That there are immaterial and intelligent substances I do not...

Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.

In the beginning God created man in His own image, and man has been trying to repay the favor ever since.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

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

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.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.

All styles are good except the tiresome kind.

You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it

Repose is a good thing, but boredom is its brother

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.

In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

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

The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis...

There are, and always have been, destructive pseudo-scientific notions linked to race and religion; these are the most widespread and damaging. Hopefully, educated people can succeed in shedding light into these areas of prejudice and...

He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado. “We do not pray to him at all,” said the reverend sage. “We have nothing to ask of him. He has given us...

L’optimisme est la rage de soutenir que tout est bien quand on est mal.

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.)

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him. But all nature cries aloud that He does exist.

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

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.

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.

mankind have a little corrupted nature, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves; God has given them neither cannon of four-and-twenty pounders, nor bayonets; and yet they have made cannon and...

People will continue to commit atrocities as long as they believe in absurdities.

Prejudice is the reason of fools

The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.

One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge

It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.

Injustice in the end produces independence.