284 quotes
We can not always oblige, but we can always speak obligingly.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
Our country is that spot to which our heart is attached.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
Misattributed
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
Misattributed
France is a nation with one religion and many sauces; England is a nation with many religions and only one sauce.
Misattributed Actual source is Louis Eustache Ude (1829)
All religions are more or less mixed with superstitions. Man is not reasonable enough to content himself with a pure and sensible religion, worthy of the Deity.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
Life is long enough for him who knows how to use it. Working and thinking extend its limits.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
Stupid stoics! you want to change man, and you destroy him!
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
Etymology is a science in which vowels signify nothing at all, and consonants very little.
Disputed
It does not depend upon us to avoid poverty, but it does depend upon us to make that poverty respected.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?
Misattributed
Society depends upon women. The nations who confine them are unsociable.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
Doctors are men who prescribe medicine of which they know little, to human beings of whom they know less, to cure diseases of which they know nothing.
Disputed Note: This attribution to Voltaire appears in Strauss' Familiar Medical Quotations (1968)
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
In those countries where the morals are the most dissolute, the language is the most severe; as if they would replace on the lips what has deserted the heart.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
Misattributed
Why do we dream in our sleep if we have no soul? and, if we have one, how is it that dreams are so incoherent and extravagant?
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
God created woman only to tame man.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
O unfortunates who sin without pleasure! in your errors be more reasonable ; be, at least, fortunate sinners. Since you must be damned, be damned for amiable faults.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)
Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.
Attributed A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1902)