Even Voltaire's father could not make a lawyer out of a genius. To be a good lawyer, one must have a mind and a disposition to venerate the past; a respect for precedents; a belief in the wisdom and the sanctity of the dead. Voltaire had genius, imagination, feeling, and poetry, and these gifts always have been, and always will be, incompatible with the practice of law.

Had the modern professors of eugenics had power in France in 1694, they probably would not have permitted such a child to have been born. Their scientific know…

The usual is always mediocre. When nature takes it into her head to make a man, she fits him with her own equipment and educates him in her own school.

When Voltaire was born there was really but one church which, of course, was ignorant, tyrannical and barbarous in the extreme. All creeds are alike, and whene…

In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.

Oh, had I received the education I desired, had I been bred to the profession of the law, I might have been a useful member of society, and instead of myself a…

I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do. 'Mother and Child Reunion' for example, is not a song that you would have normally …