The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks.

Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.

I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?' That is a hard question,' said Candide.

Mortals are equal; their mask differs.

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

The most amazing and effective inventions are not those which do most honour to the human genius.

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