Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances. It is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.
VoltaireThe abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault.
VoltaireMartin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.
VoltaireIt 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.
Voltaire