Voltaire

I tried to believe in God, but I confess to you that God meant nothing in my life, and that in my secret heart I too felt a void where my childhood faith had been. But probably this feeling belongs only to individuals in transition. The grandchildren of these pessimists will frolic in the freedom of their lives, and have more happiness than poor Christians darkened with fear of Hell.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

S'il n'existait pas Dieu il faudrait l'inventer." (If God did not exist he would have to be invented.)

Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.

By what incomprehensible mechanism are our organs held in subjection to sentiment and thought? How is it that a single melancholy idea shall disturb the whole course of the blood; and that the blood should in turn communicate irregularities to the human understanding? What is that unknown fluid which certainly exists and which, quicker and more active than light, flies in less than the twinkling of an eye into all the channels of life,__roduces sensations, memory, joy or grief, reason or frenzy,__ecalls with horror what we would choose to forget; and renders a thinking animal, either a subject of admiration, or an object of pity and compassion?

If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.

All our ancient history, as one of our wits remarked, is no more than accepted fiction.

It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.

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

God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.

on doit des égards aux vivants, on ne doit aux morts que la vérité.

You are very harsh.''I have seen the world.

But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

The Dutch fetishes who converted me tell me every Sunday that the blacks and whites are all children of one father, whom they call Adam. As for me, I do not understand anything of genealogies; but if what these preachers say is true, we are all second cousins; and you must allow that it is impossible to be worse treated by our relations than we are.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

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

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

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