there are vices which it is better to ignore than to punish.
one should not pronounce a word in public which an honest woman cannot repeat.
i know no great men but those who have rendered great services to humanity.
honor has ever achieved greater things than interest.
occupation and work are the only resources against misfortune.
my maxim is to fulfil all my duties to-day, because i am not sure of living to-morrow.
most men die before having lived.
it is necessary to combat nature and fortune till the last moment, and to never despair till one is dead.
work without disputing; it is the only way to render life supportable.
passions are the winds that swell the sails of the ship. it is true, they sometimes sink her, but without them she could not sail at all. the bile makes us sick and choleric; but without the bile we could not live. everything in this world is dangerous, and yet everything in it is necessary.
we should introduce into our existence all imaginable modes, and open every door of the minds to all kinds of knowledge, and all sorts of feelings. so long as it does not all go in pell-mell, there is room enough for all.
it is the part of a man like you [vauvenargues] to have preferences, but no exclusions.
the unwise value every word in an author of repute.
opinion governs the world, and philosophers in the long run govern opinion.
we enjoin mankind to conquer their passions. make the experiment of only depriving a man, in the habit of taking it, of his pinch of snuff.
do we not nearly all resemble the aged general of ninety years, who, seeing some young fellows larking with the girls, said to them angrily: “gentlemen, is that the example which i give you?”
passions are diseases. to cure a man of a criminal intention, we should give him not counsel, but a dose of physic.
women are like windmills, fixed while they revolve.
i fear lest marriage may not rather be one of the seven deadly sins than one of the seven sacraments.
divorce is probably of about the same date as marriage.
i believe, however, that marriage is several weeks the elder.
war is an epitome of all wickedness.
the race of preachers inveigh against little vices, and pass over great ones in silence. they never sermonise against war.
what strange rage possesses some people to insist on our all being miserable? they are like a quack, who would fain have us believe we are ill, in order to sell us his pills. keep thy drugs, my friend, and leave me my health.
can one change their character? yes, if one changes their body.
men are fools, but ecclesiastics are their leaders.
i do not believe even eye-witnesses when they tell me things opposed to common sense.
the fanatics begin with humility and kindness, and have all ended with pride and carnage.
the pope is an idol, whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed.
what an immense book might be composed on all the things once believed, of which it is necessary to doubt.
that which can be explained in many ways does not merit being explained in any.
theology is in religion what poison is among food.
theology has only served to upset brains, and sometimes states.
that which is an eternal subject of dispute is an eternal inutility.
to pray is to flatter oneself that one will change entire nature with words.
names of sects; names of error. truth has no sect.
no man is called an euclidian.
henry iv., after his victories, his abjuration, and his coronation, caused a cross to be erected in rome, with the following inscription: in hoc signa vincis. the wood of the cross was the carriage of a cannon.
a revolution has been accomplished in the human mind which nothing again can ever arrest.
it is never by metaphysics that you will succeed in delivering men from error; you must prove the truth by facts.
if fortune brings to pass one of a hundred events predicted by roguery, all the others are forgotten, and that one remains as a pledge of the favor of god, and as the proof of a prodigy.
every one is born with a nose and five fingers, and no one is born with a knowledge of god. this may be deplorable or not, but it is certainly the human condition.
if god made us in his own image, we have well returned him the compliment.
nature preserves the species, and cares but very little for individuals.
to fast, to pray, a priest’s virtue; to succor, virtue of a citizen.
when bellerophon, mounted on pegasus, wished to ascend to heaven to discover the secrets of the gods, a fly stung pegasus, and he was thrown.
“why do you receive so many fools in your order?” was said to a jesuit. “we need saints.”
rousseau [j. b.] having shown his antagonist [voltaire] his ode to posterity, the latter said: “my friend, here is a letter which will never reach its address.”
if a tulip could speak, and said, “my vegetation and i are two distinct beings, evidently joined together,” would you not mock at the tulip?
why all these pleasantries on religion? they are never made on morality.
a fanatic of good faith, always a dangerous kind of man.
the consolation of life is to say out what one thinks.
the end
