All is for the best in the best of possible worlds.

Voltaire · The source reads: “Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles. All is for the best in the best of possible worlds.”

History is no more than the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes.

Voltaire · Dialogue 14. Le Chapon et la Poularde (The Capon and the Hen) (1766), L’Ingénu (1767), ch. 10

The man who has ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities, and his imaginings for prophecies, is an enthusiast. The man who backs his madness with murder is a fanatic.

Voltaire · The source reads: “The man who has ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities, and his imaginings for prophecies, is an enthusiast. The.”

The embarrassment of riches.

Voltaire · Le Droit du Seigneur, act II, sc. vi

More Quotes from Books

Remarks are not literature.

Gertrude Stein · The source reads: “Remarks are not literature [said to Hemingway].” · The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), said to Hemingway

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

L. P. Hartley · The first sentence of The Go-Between.

The sea is at its best at London, near midnight, when you are within the arms of a capacious chair, before a glowing fire, selecting phases of the voyages you will never make.

H. M. Tomlinson · The Sea and the Jungle (1912)

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“All is for the best in the best of possible worlds.”

“History is no more than the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes.”

“The man who has ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities, and his imaginings for prophecies, is an enthusiast. The man who backs his madness with murder is a fanatic.”

“The embarrassment of riches.”

“Remarks are not literature.”

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

“The sea is at its best at London, near midnight, when you are within the arms of a capacious chair, before a glowing fire, selecting phases of the voyages you will never make.”