Voltaire Quotes
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“God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
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“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
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“Common sense is not so common.”
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“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”
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“It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.”
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“To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”
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“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
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“Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
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“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.”
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“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”
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“The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.”
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“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”
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“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”
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“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”
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“Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.”
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“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”
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“Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.”
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“To hold a pen is to be at war.”
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“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.”
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“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”
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“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
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“God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.”
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“Tears are the silent language of grief.”
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“When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
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“It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.”
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“What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.”
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“The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.”
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“The superfluous, a very necessary thing.”
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“It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.”
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“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.”
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“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.”
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“Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”
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“Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.”
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“Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.”
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“If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.”
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“Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.”
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“The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.”
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“Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.”
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“Better is the enemy of good.”
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“All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.”
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“We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.”
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“Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.”
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“It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.”
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“The best is the enemy of the good.”
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“One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.”
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“To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.”
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“Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.”
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“Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.”
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“To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.”
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“The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.”
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“There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.”
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“Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.”
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“Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?”
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“It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.”
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“The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.”
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“Injustice in the end produces independence.”
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“We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.”
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“Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.”
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“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”
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“It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.”
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“Clever tyrants are never punished.”
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“We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.”
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“The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.”
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“In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.”
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“A witty saying proves nothing.”
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“It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.”
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“I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.”
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“The ear is the avenue to the heart.”
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“In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.”
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“Prejudices are what fools use for reason.”
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“Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.”
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“Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.”
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“Use, do not abuse… neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”
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“I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.”
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“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”
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“Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.”
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“The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.”
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“He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.”
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“He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.”
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“It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.”
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“Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal.”
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“History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.”
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“My life is a struggle.”
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“Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.”
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“I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.”
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“To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.”
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“What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.”
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“Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.”
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“We are rarely proud when we are alone.”
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“The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.”
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“It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.”
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“We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.”
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“He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.”
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“Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.”
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“Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.”
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“Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.”
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“Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.”
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“I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.”
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“The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.”
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“This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.”
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“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”
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“When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.”
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“Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.”
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“The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.”
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“The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.”
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“Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.”
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“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.”
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“What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.”
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“Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.”
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“Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.”
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“By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.”
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“Nature has always had more force than education.”
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“Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.”
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“All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.”
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“Fear follows crime and is its punishment.”
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“Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.”
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“We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.”
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“All styles are good except the tiresome kind.”
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“History should be written as philosophy.”
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“He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.”
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“The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.”
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“Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.”
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“The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.”
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“The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.”
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“He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.”
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“Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.”
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“Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.”
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“Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.”
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“What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.”
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“We cannot wish for that we know not.”
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“The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.”
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“I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.”
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“When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit money when there is no good money.”
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“The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.”
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“The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.”
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“Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.”
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“We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.”
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“The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.”
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“In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.”
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“Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.”
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“Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.”
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“The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.”
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“It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.”
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“Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.”
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“Society therefore is as ancient as the world.”
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“Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.”
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“The multitude of books is making us ignorant.”
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“Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.”
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“Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.”