“It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”

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

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”

“The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.”

“Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”

“It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.”

“Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn’t illegal.”

“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.”

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

“History never repeats itself. Man always does.”

“The infinitely small have a pride infinitely great.”

“The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.”

“Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.”

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

“If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.”

“A State can be no better than the citizens of which it is composed. Our labour now is not to mould States but make citizens.”

“May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.”

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”

“Our labour preserves us from three great evils — weariness, vice, and want.”

“Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.”

“I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.”

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

“The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.”

“Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.”

“Dare to think for yourself.”

“‘Optimism,’ said Cacambo, ‘What is that?’ ‘Alas!’ replied Candide, ‘It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.'”

“We are rarely proud when we are alone.”

“To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid – one must also be polite.”

“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.”

“Injustice in the end produces independence.”

“To hold a pen is to be at war.”

“When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.”

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

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

“Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.”

“I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.”

“It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.”

“I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests.”

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

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

“Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.”

“One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.”

“What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he’s certain he’ll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?”

“If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other’s throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace.”

“Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.”

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

“It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.”

“The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.”

“Men argue. Nature acts.”