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Quotation of the day
Sunday, 6 July 2008
Daily Quote:
"Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life." (Congreve, William - Joy)

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Proverb of the Day
All that glitters is not gold.
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Browse Quotations by Voltaire

If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new.
Every man is the creature of the age in which he lives; very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.
Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
It is not known precisely where angels dwell -- whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.
Animals have these advantages over man: They have no theologians to instruct them, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.
A long dispute means that both parties are wrong
Men argue, nature acts.
Weakness on both sides is, the motto of all quarrels.
In this country it's a good thing to kill an admiral now and then to encourage the others.
All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
All kinds are good except the kind that bores you.
Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.
The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.
The Pope is an idol whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed.
Common sense is not so common.
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
He who dies before many witnesses always does so with courage.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.
To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.
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 preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.
I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age.
In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.
All people are equal, it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes the difference.
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
Exaggeration is the inseparable companion of greatness.
The best is the enemy of the good.
What a heavy burden is a name that has become famous too soon.
It is fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions.
Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies it is the first law of nature.
The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks.
It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting.
The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.
God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions.
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.
History is just the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes.
Shun idleness is the rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.
I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life that he had wasted his time. It must be admitted that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men that the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship towers considerably above him who imagined innate ideas.
I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one.
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
My life is a battle.
Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.
When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics.
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
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.
How I like the boldness of the English, how I like the people who say what they think!
The superfluous is very necessary.
In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.
Originality is nothing but judicious plagiarism.
Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; she requires the hand of time.
The public is a ferocious beast. One must either chain it up or flee from it.
The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy.
When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy.
Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.
Work is often the father of pleasure.