But for what purpose was the earth formed?” asked Candide. “To drive us mad,” replied Martin.

If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?

We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

To announce truths is an infallible receipt for being persecuted.

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

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to...

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Rest is a good thing, but boredom is its brother.

Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of...

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.

The heart has its own reasons that reason can’t understand.

Je fus nommé historiographe de France; et le roi me fit présent d’une charge de gentilhomme ordinaire de sa chambre; je conclus que pour faire la plus petite fortune, il valait mieux dire quatre mots...

An infallible method of making fanatics is to persuade before you instruct

Slavery is also as ancient as war, and was as human nature.

Tears are the silent language of grief

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

The biggest reward for a thing well done is to have done it

It is not enough to conquer; one must also know how to seduce

Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time

Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting.

No snowflake in an avalanch ever feels responsible.

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...

Wisdom must yield to superstition’s rules,Who arms with bigot zeal the hand of fools.

To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

I have been studying for forty years, which is to say forty wasted years; I teach others yet am ignorant of everything; this state of affairs fills my soul with so much humiliation and disgust...

Perhaps, if I use my reason in good faith, I may suceed in discovering some ray of probability to lighten me in the dark night of nature. And if this faint dawn which I seek...

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.