"All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books."

Voltaire on books - reading   

"Truth is a fruit which should not be plucked until it is ripe."

Voltaire on truth
3 fans of this quote   

"Originality is nothing but judicious plagiarism."

Voltaire on originality
7 fans of this quote   

"In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation."

Voltaire on news
3 fans of this quote   

"Shun idleness is the rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals."

Voltaire on idleness
4 fans of this quote   

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."

Voltaire on government
12 fans of this quote   

"Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers."

Voltaire on government
3 fans of this quote   

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."

Voltaire on god
11 fans of this quote   

"God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best."

Voltaire on god   

"God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions."

Voltaire on god   

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Voltaire on freedom
14 fans of this quote   

"Many people think that if they were only in some other place, or had some other job, they would be happy. Well, that is doubtful. So get as much happiness out of what you are doing as you can and don't put off being happy until some future date."

Carnegie, Dale on happiness
12 fans of this quote   

"I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one."

Voltaire on law and lawyers
3 fans of this quote   

"We never live; we are always in the expectation of living."

Voltaire on life
4 fans of this quote   

"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion."

Voltaire on money
6 fans of this quote   

"The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."

Voltaire on medicine
9 fans of this quote   

"Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly."

Voltaire on marriage   

"We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly."

Voltaire on manners   

"Weakness on both sides is, the motto of all quarrels."

Voltaire on argument   

"A long dispute means that both parties are wrong"

Voltaire on argument
7 fans of this quote   

"By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property."

Voltaire on appreciation
4 fans of this quote   

"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."

Voltaire on animals
7 fans of this quote   

"The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won't sit upon a cold stove lid, either."

Twain, Mark on experience
9 fans of this quote   

"Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."

Twain, Mark on education
10 fans of this quote   

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

Twain, Mark on education
53 fans of this quote   

"I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want."

Twain, Mark on desire
39 fans of this quote   

"The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane."

Twain, Mark on dissent
28 fans of this quote   

"He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients, no, three, I think -- yes, it was three; I attended their funerals."

Twain, Mark on doctors
12 fans of this quote   

"Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain."

Twain, Mark on duty
30 fans of this quote   

"We should consider every day lost in which we have not danced at least once."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on dance and dancing
21 fans of this quote   

"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation."

Buck, Pearl S. on youth
49 fans of this quote   

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Twain, Mark on action
234 fans of this quote   

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."

Twain, Mark on facts
43 fans of this quote   

"Familiarity breeds contempt; and children."

Twain, Mark on familiarity
12 fans of this quote   

"We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly."

Twain, Mark on family
15 fans of this quote   

"Methuselah lived to be 969 years old . You boys and girls will see more in the next fifty years than Methuselah saw in his whole lifetime."

Twain, Mark on age and aging
12 fans of this quote   

"Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all."

Twain, Mark on age and aging
6 fans of this quote   

"Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with."

Twain, Mark on friends and friendship
20 fans of this quote   

"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are."

Twain, Mark on friends and friendship
22 fans of this quote   

"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either."

Twain, Mark on freedom
9 fans of this quote