Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
Our two eyes do not make our lot better; one serves us to see the good things, the other the evils of life. A lot of people have the bad habit of closing the first, and very few close the second.
If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.
A miracle is the violation of mathematical, divine, immutable, eternal laws. By this very statement, a miracle is a contradiction in terms. A law cannot be immutable and violable at the same time.
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy-the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever, and what rage is to anger. The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic.
To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
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.
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
My God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
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.
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
Where friendship is, there is one's homeland.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid; you must also be well-mannered.
Love truth, but pardon error.
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
Doctors are men who pour drugs of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, into human beings of whom they know nothing.
The best is the enemy of the good.
History is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the diseases.
Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
To wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.
Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.
History is the lie commonly agreed upon.
Clever tyrants are never punished.
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
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.
Prejudice is an opinion without judgement.
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
