"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating --people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing."

Wilde, Oscar on Knowledge
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"Carry on any enterprise as if all future success depended on it."

Richelieu, Cardinal De on Commitment
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"Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing."

Wilde, Oscar on Argument
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"Every theory of love, from Plato down teaches that each individual loves in the other sex what he lacks in himself."

Hall, G. Stanely on Men and Women
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"Philosophy does not regard pedigree, she received Plato not as a noble, but she made him one."

Seneca on Philosophers and Philosophy
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"All thought is naught but a footnote to Plato."

Santayana, George on Thoughts and Thinking
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"Socrates had a student named Plato, Plato had a student named Aristotle, and Aristotle had a student named Alexander the Great."

Morris, Tom on Influence
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"While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?"

Jefferson, Thomas on Philosophers and Philosophy
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"To know how to disguise is the knowledge of kings."

Richelieu, Cardinal De on Deception
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"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

Richelieu, Cardinal De on Honesty
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"Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of the State."

Richelieu, Cardinal De on Secrets
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"Give me six lines written by the most honorable person alive, and I shall find enough in them to condemn them to the gallows."

Richelieu, Cardinal De on Judgment and Judges
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"The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great."

Voltaire on Pride
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"Rest is a good thing, but boredom is its brother."

Voltaire on Rest
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"Independence in the end is the fruit of injustice."

Voltaire on Revolutions and Revolutionaries
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"Self-love is the instrument of our preservation."

Voltaire on Self-love
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"It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love."

Voltaire on Self-love
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"He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked."

Voltaire on Questions
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"Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason."

Voltaire on Reason
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"The punishment of criminals should serve a purpose. When a man is hanged he is useless."

Voltaire on Punishment
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"Judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers."

Voltaire on Questions
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"This poem will never reach its destination. [On Rousseau's Ode To Posterity]"

Voltaire on Poetry and Poets
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"Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read."

Voltaire on Poetry and Poets
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"Work is often the father of pleasure."

Voltaire on Pleasure
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"The public is a ferocious beast. One must either chain it up or flee from it."

Voltaire on People
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"Perfection is attained by slow degrees; she requires the hand of time."

Voltaire on Patience
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"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."

Voltaire on Song and Singing
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"He who doesn't have the spirit of his time, has all its misery."

Voltaire on Spirit and Spirituality
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"One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly."

Voltaire on Coward and Cowardice
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"To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered."

Voltaire on Courtesy
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"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."

Voltaire on Conformity
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"Common sense is not so common."

Voltaire on Common Sense
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"If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new."

Voltaire on Adventure
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"You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it."

Voltaire on Writers and Writing
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"Work banishes those three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty."

Voltaire on Work
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"It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge."

Voltaire on Virginity
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"In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other."

Voltaire on Taxes and Taxation
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"The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself."

Voltaire on Surprises
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"Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy; the mad daughter of a wise mother."

Voltaire on Superstition
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"The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it."

Voltaire on Character
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