Jonathan Dayan > Jonathan's Quotes

“Man is free at the instant he wants to be.”
― Voltaire

“We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.”
― Voltaire

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
― Voltaire

“Common sense is not so common.”
― Voltaire, A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary

“No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking.”
― Voltaire

“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.”
― Voltaire

“Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies."
(Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)”
― Voltaire

“I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense, who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.”
― David Hume, Selected Essays

“When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
― Voltaire

“Paradise is where I am”
― Voltaire

“theology is to religion what poisons are to food”
― Voltaire

“It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.”
― Voltaire

“To hold a pen is to be at war.”
― Voltaire

“It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.”
― Voltaire

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
― Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV

“It is the triumph of superior reason to live with folks who don't have any.”
― Voltaire, Socrates

“Dare to think for yourself.”
― Voltaire

“I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.”
― Voltaire

“No, no, I am but shadow of myself:
You are deceived, my substance is not here;”
― William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1

“Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”
― Albert Camus

“we rarely confide in those who are better than we. Rather, we are more inclined to flee their society. Most often, on the other hand, we confess to those who are like us and who share our weaknesses. Hence we don't want to improve ourselves and be bettered, for we should first have to be judged in default. We merely wish to be pitied and encouraged in the course we have chosen. In short, we should like, at the same time, to cease being guilty and yet not to make the effort of cleansing ourselves.”
― Albert Camus

“A person's life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art or love or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened.”
― Albert Camus

“For ever, I shall be a stranger to myself.”
― Albert Camus

“An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.”
― Albert Camus

“As in all religions, man is freed of the weight of his own life.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld

“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.”
― François de La Rochefoucauld

“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -”
― Heraclitus

“The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it.”
― Francois de La Rochefoucauld