Great Throughts Treasury

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity."

"Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons."

"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies. [on his deathbed, to a priest asking that he renounce Satan]"

"Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony such as never been heard in hell."

"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense."

"O superstition! Your inflexible rigors deprive humanity of the most sensitive hearts."

"Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them."

"Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best."

"Once the people begin to reason, all is lost"

"Once: a philosopher... twice: a pervert."

"One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence."

"One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say"

"One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker."

"One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion"

"One great use of words is to hide our thoughts."

"One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose."

"One owes respect to the living; to the dead one owes only truth."

"One should always cite what one does not understand at all in the language one understands the least."

"One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly."

"Only now did I become thoroughly acquainted with the seducer of our people. It is not the inequality which is the real misfortune, it is the dependence."

"Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,' said he,'and you'll fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an action, and send you relief."

"Only your friends steal your books"

"Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable."

"Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes."

"Optimism, said Cacambo, What is that? Alas! replied Candide, It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst."

"Originality is nothing by judicious imitation (plagiarism). The most original writers borrowed one from another."

"Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others and it becomes the property of all."

"Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours."

"Our character is composed of our ideas and our feelings: and, since it has been proved that we give ourselves neither feelings nor ideas, our character does not depend on us. If it did depend on us, there is nobody who would not be perfect. If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing"

"Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound."

"Our labor preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want."

"Ours is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. ... My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out."

"Pangloss deceived me cruelly when he said that all is for the best in the world."

"Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road."

"People sometimes say: Common sense is quite rare."

"People have declaimed against luxury for two thousand years, in verse and prose, and people have always delighted in it."

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

"Perhaps there is nothing greater on earth than the sacrifice of youth and beauty, often of high birth, made by the gentle sex in order to work in hospitals for the relief of human misery, the sight of which is so revolting to our delicacy. Peoples separated from the Roman religion have imitated but imperfectly so generous a charity."

"Perfect is the enemy of good."

"Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls."

"Philosophers never stood in need of Homer or the Pharisees to be convinced that everything is done by immutable laws; that everything is settled; that everything is the necessary effect of some previous cause."

"Prejudices are what fools use for reason."

"Prejudice, friend, govern the vulgar crowd."

"Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life."

"Quite a heavy weight, a name too quickly famous."

"Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace."

"Really, to stop criticism, they say, one must die."

"Reason is, of all things in the world, the most hurtful to a reasoning human being. God only allows it to remain with those he intends to damn, and in his goodness takes it away from those he intends to save or render useful to the Church... If reason had any part in religion, what then would become of faith."

"Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool."

"Regimen is superior to medicine."