Voltaire

"History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes."

"Criticism is the ability to discern character."

"Every comfort which does not come from within is not true comfort."

"Common sense is quite rare among uncommon people."

"It is my business to write down these things as they occur, not to judge them."

"The way to be bored is to say everything."

"Nature has endowed us with hopes and sleep as compensation for the miseries of life."

"To be bored is to be deprived of self."

"Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks."

"Virtue has never made so many people unhappy as has the love of virtue."

"The art of being a pleasant guest is to never push."

"We are not born merely to seek our own happiness; we are born to love."

"Passion is the only real power."

"All style is a choice and all choice reveals something."

"The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing."

"Nothing is more moving than the misfortunes of men."

"Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats."

"I have always thought it was a misfortune to be born a lady."

"The great danger in life is taking too much care of oneself."

"Beauty is a fact, not a matter of opinion."

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own."

"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere."

"Every man is guilty of all the bad he allowed to happen."

"Good and evil are to me the only reality."

"Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart."

"The perfect is the enemy of progress."

"There is nothing so ridiculous as to hear a man talking about his own importance."

"Wars would never begin if the dead could return."

"Music is one of the most forcible instruments for awakening an assembly."

"There is no such thing as a bad person; only a person with bad manners."