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God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions. -- Voltaire
Prejudices are what rule the vulgar crowd. -- Voltaire
Ask a toad what is beauty ... ; he will answer that it is a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat mouth, a yellow belly and a brown back. -- Voltaire
this is how men treat one another. -- Voltaire
The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters; always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous - cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity. -- Voltaire
Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is. -- Voltaire
If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him. -- Voltaire
I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain. -- Voltaire
Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were of course exterminated. -- Voltaire
A woman can keep one secret the secret of her age. -- Voltaire
My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue, -- Voltaire
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers. -- Voltaire
Speaking of Newton but also commenting more broadly on education and the Enlightenment: I have seen a professor of mathematics only because he was great in his vocation, buried like a king who had done well by his subjects. -- Voltaire
Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here. -- Voltaire
He who is involved in ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for reality, and his own imagination for prophesy, is a fanatical novice of great hope and promise, and will soon advance to the higher stage and kill men for the love of God. -- Voltaire
And to every man has been assigned a good and an evil angel; one assisting him and the other annoying him, from his cradle to his coffin. -- Voltaire
A small number of choice books are sufficient. -- Voltaire
How many plays have been written in France?' Candide asked the abbe.
'Five or six thousand.'
'That's a lot,' said Candide. 'How many of them are good?'
'Fifteen or sixteen,' replied the abbe.
'That's a lot,' said Martin. -- Voltaire
That is why all romantics are anti-Voltairean, even Michelet, whose political fervor ought to have made him stand aligned with Voltaire; and that is why, on the other hand, all the minds which accept the world and recognize its irony and indifference are Voltairean. -- Voltaire
To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth. -- Voltaire
To the living we owe our respect, but to the dead we own only the truth. -- Voltaire
If they're from the village, you take them to the inn. If they're from the city, you treat them with respect when they are beautiful and throw them on the highway when they are dead. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
All styles are good except the tiresome kind. -- Voltaire
She blushed and so did he. She greeted him in a faltering voice, and he spoke to her without knowing what he was saying. -- Voltaire
Villains are undone by what is worst in them, heroes by what is best. -- Voltaire
Don't think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money. -- Voltaire
Change everything except your loves. -- Voltaire
Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world. -- Voltaire
I am so satiated with the great number of detestable books with which we are inundated that I am reduced to punting at faro. -- Voltaire
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him. -- Voltaire
I also know that we should cultivate our gardens. -- Voltaire
Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law. -- Voltaire
Imagine all contradictions, all possible incompatibilities
you will find them in the government, in the law-courts, in the churches, in the public shows of this droll nation. -- Voltaire
The passions are the winds which fill the sails of the vessel; they sink it at times, but without them it would be impossible to make way. -- Voltaire
Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,' said he,'and you'll fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an action, and send you relief. -- Voltaire
Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed. -- Voltaire
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one. -- Voltaire
Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness. -- Voltaire
The son of God is the same as the son of man; the son of man is the same as the son of God. God, the father, is the same as Christ, the son; Christ, the son, is the same as God, the father. This language may appear confused to unbelievers, but Christians will readily understand it. -- Voltaire
I found the book, Qur'an,] in spite of "the contradictions, the absurdities, the anachronisms", "rhapsody, without connection, without order, and without art. -- Voltaire
I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left. -- Voltaire
Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies. -- Voltaire
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil. -- Voltaire
You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it. -- Voltaire
If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other's throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace -- Voltaire
The secret of being tiresome is in telling everything. -- Voltaire
Alas ... I too have known love, that ruler of hearts, that soul of our soul: it's never brought me anything except one kiss and twenty kicks in the rump. How could such a beautiful cause produce such an abominable effect on you? -- Voltaire
What! have you no monks who teach, who dispute, who govern, who cabal, and who burn people that are not of their opinion? -- Voltaire
This is no time to make new enemies. -- Voltaire
Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest. -- Voltaire
I've had some experience of this love, this love that rules our hearts, which is the soul of our souls; all it got me was a kiss and twenty kicks in the ass. How could so beautiful a cause have produced in you such an abominable effect? -- Voltaire
But do not you see," answered Martin, "that he likewise dislikes everything he possesses? It was an observation of Plato, long since, that those are not the best stomachs that reject, without distinction, all sorts of food. -- Voltaire
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination. -- Voltaire
The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends. -- Voltaire
Beautiful maiden," answered Candide, "when a man is in love, is jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he becomes lost to all reflection. -- Voltaire
There's scarce a point whereon mankind agree - So well as in their boast of killing me; I boast of nothing, but when I've a mind - I think I can be even with mankind -- Voltaire
There is only one morality, as there is only one geometry. -- Voltaire
I have no more than twenty acres of ground," he replied, "the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children; and our labor keeps off from us the three great evils - boredom, vice, and want. -- Voltaire
Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound. -- Voltaire
Use, do not abuse ... neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. -- Voltaire
You are very hard of belief," said Candide. "I have lived," said Martin. -- Voltaire
A true god surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough ... [or inspired] books, filled with contradictions, madness, and horror. -- Voltaire
I have been in several provinces. In some one-half of the people are fools, in others they are too cunning; in some they are weak and simple, in others they affect to be witty; in all, the principal occupation is love, the next is slander, and the third is talking nonsense. -- Voltaire
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -- Voltaire
Men who have seen life and death ... as an unbroken continuum, the swinging pendulum, have been able to move as freely into death as they walked through life. Socrates went to the grave almost perplexed by his companions' tears. -- Voltaire
If the bookseller happens to desire a privilege for his merchandise, whether he is selling Rabelais or the Fathers of the Church, the magistrate grants the privilege without answering for the contents of the book. - Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire -- Voltaire
Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked. -- Voltaire
The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs. -- Voltaire
Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
The law of nature teaches us to kill our neighbour, and -- Voltaire
God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart to the finest verses chanted by the wicked. -- Voltaire
Anything too stupid to be said is sung. -- Voltaire
Let us meet four times a year in a grand temple with music, and thank God for all his gifts. There is one sun. There is one God. Let us have one religion. Then all mankind will be brethren. -- Voltaire
Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities. -- Voltaire
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die. -- Voltaire
No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. -- Voltaire
I know this love, that sovereign of hearts, that soul of our souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. How could this beautiful cause produce in you an effect so abominable. -- Voltaire
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future. -- Voltaire
What can be feared when one is doing one's duty? I know the rage of my enemies. I know all their slanders; but when one only tries to do good to men and when one does not offend heaven, one can fear nothing, neither during life nor after death. -- Voltaire
We only half live when we only half think. -- Voltaire
For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm. -- Voltaire
Irregularity is inherent in our very nature; expecting people to be perfectly wise is as crazy as putting wings on dogs or horns on eagles -- Voltaire
Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day. -- Voltaire
You must have the Devil in you to succeed in any of the arts -- Voltaire
It was an observation of Plato, long since, that those are not the best stomachs that reject, without distinction, all sorts of aliments." "True," said Candide, "but still there must certainly be a pleasure in criticising everything, and in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
England has forty-two religions and only two sauces. -- Voltaire
The opinion of all lawyers, the unanimous cry of the nation, and the good of the state, are in themselves a law. -- Voltaire
There can be no effect without a cause," modestly answered Candide; "the whole is necessarily concatenated and arranged for the best. -- Voltaire
A lady of honor may be raped once, but it strengthens her virtue. -- Voltaire
Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool. -- Voltaire
The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor. -- Voltaire
The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice. -- Voltaire
Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft; but we do not steal that which is given to us. -- Voltaire
The harmony of a concert, to which you listen with delight, must have on certain classes of minute animals the effect of terrible thunder; perhaps it kills them. -- Voltaire
There is a pleasure in not being pleased. -- Voltaire
Candide listened attentively and believed innocently; for he thought Miss Cunegonde extremely beautiful, though he never had the courage to tell her so. -- Voltaire
Said Candide to Cacambo:
My friend, you see how perishable are the riches of this world; there is nothing solid but virtue, and the happiness of seeing Cunegonde once more. -- Voltaire
I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition. -- Voltaire
No, nothing has the power to part me from you; our love is based upon virtue, and will last as long as our lives. -- Voltaire
What's optimism? said Cacambo.
Alas, said Candide, it is a mania for saying things are well when one is in hell. -- Voltaire
To enjoy life we must touch much of it lightly. -- Voltaire
The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous. -- Voltaire
History in general is a collection of crimes, follies, and misfortunes among which we have now and then met with a few virtues, and some happy times. -- Voltaire
The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it. -- Voltaire
The monster, fanaticism, still exists, and whoever seeks after truth will run the risk of being persecuted. -- Voltaire
Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them. -Francois -- Voltaire
I am infinitely more touched by your extreme generosity than with the inhumanity of that gentleman -- Voltaire
I've decided to be happy because it's good for my health. -- Voltaire
A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely to reconcile health with intemperance. -- Voltaire
There can be no happiness without good health -- Voltaire
The way to become boring is to say everything. -- Voltaire
The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe. -- Voltaire
To find why this sheep's wool was red; and the prize was awarded to a learned man of the North, who demonstrated by A plus B minus C divided by Z, that the sheep must be red, and die of the rot. -- Voltaire
The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors. -- Voltaire
There is the history of opinions which is hardly anything but a collection of human errors. -- Voltaire
All the arts are brothers; each one is a light to the others. -- Voltaire
We know that all the arts are brothers, that each of them illuminates another, and that a universal light results. -- Voltaire
It is ourselves alone that make our days lucky or unlucky. Away, then, with a vain prejudice, the invention of the priesthood, which has been transmitted by our ancestors to an ignorant people. -- Voltaire
It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force than the minds of a single village. -- Voltaire
God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh. -- Voltaire
His face was the true index of his mind. -- Voltaire
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient. -- Voltaire
There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics ... We repeat, there was far more imagination in the head of Archimedes than in that of Homer. -- Voltaire
The Pride of every Jew finds cause to believe that the cause of their down fall is not their detestable politics, or ignorance of social graces, but the raft of God. They believe it took a miracle to undo them. -- Voltaire
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women. -- Voltaire
The supper was like most Parisian suppers: silence at first, then a burst of unintelligible chatter, then witticisms that were mostly vapid, false rumors, bad reasonings, a little politics and a great deal of slander; they even spoke about new books. -- Voltaire
Among the illusions which have invested our civilization is an absolute belief that the solutions to our problems must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise ... The reality is that our problems are largely the product of that application. -- Voltaire
The Baron was one of Westphalia's most potent aristocrats, since his mansion boasted both a door and windows. -- Voltaire
Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all. -- Voltaire
May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies. -- Voltaire
We are at the end of all our troubles, and at the beginning of happiness -- Voltaire
If you are attacked as regards your style, never reply; it is for your work alone to make answer. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
Meslier was the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the Christian religion. -- Voltaire
Fools admire everything in an author of reputation. -- Voltaire
All is a miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of stars, the activity of light, the life of all animals, all are grand and perpetual miracles. -- Voltaire
Language is a very difficult thing to put into words. -- Voltaire
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce. -- Voltaire
Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs. -- Voltaire
In short, the alphabet was the origin of all man's knowledge, and of all his errors. -- Voltaire
In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten. -- Voltaire
Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it. -- Voltaire
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. -- Voltaire
He vainly said that human will is free, -- Voltaire
Miss, you are seventy-two percent noble and don't have a cent. Whether or not you marry the greatest lord in South America - who has an extraordinarily handsome mustache - is entirely up to you. -- Voltaire
Prejudices are what fools use for reason. -- Voltaire
An admiral should be put to death now and then to encourage the others. -- Voltaire
Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote. -- Voltaire
It's not inequality which is the real misfortune, it's dependence -- Voltaire
Give me the patience for the small things of life, courage for the great trials of life. Help me to do my best each day and then go to sleep knowing God is awake. -- Voltaire
But in this country it is necessary, now and then, to put one admiral to death in order to inspire the others to fight. -- Voltaire
Whosoever does not know how to recognize the faults of great men is incapable of estimating their perfections. -- Voltaire
If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? -- Voltaire
Upon such slender threads as these do the fates of mortals hang -- Voltaire
Man is not born wicked; he becomes so, as he becomes sick. -- Voltaire
You will notice that in all disputes between Christians since the birth of the Church, Rome has always favored the doctrine which most completely subjugated the human mind and annihilated reason. -- Voltaire
Virtue debases itself in justifying itself. -- Voltaire
I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths. -- Voltaire
The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him -- Voltaire
Everything is not as good as in El-Dorado; but everything is not so bad. -- Voltaire
Isn't there a pleasure in criticising everything and discovering faults where other men detect beauties? -- Voltaire
If you want to kill Christianity you must abolish Sunday. -- Voltaire
God created woman to tame man. -- Voltaire
We are going to a new world ... and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world. -- Voltaire
Wine is the divine juice of September. -- Voltaire
Needless to say since Christ's expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die. -- Voltaire
Liberty of thought is the life of the soul. -- Voltaire
Do transports of rage make a religion any truer? A man shot in a battle does not lose his temper, but argue with a theologian and he becomes implacable. -- Voltaire
He was natural and sublime, but had not so much as a single spark of good taste, or knew one rule of the drama. -- Voltaire
Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel that when we find one who is only weak, we are too happy. -- Voltaire
There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
Man can have only a certain number of teeth, hair and ideas; there comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth, hair and ideas. -- Voltaire
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms. -- Voltaire
Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent. -- Voltaire
Fear follows crime and is its punishment. -- Voltaire
War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not color his crime with the pretext of justice. -- Voltaire
We must cultivate our garden. -- Voltaire
The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists. -- Voltaire
One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion -- Voltaire
Everywhere the weak execrate the powerful, before whom they cringe; and the powerful beat them like sheep whose wool and flesh they sell. -- Voltaire
Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness. -- Voltaire
It is with books as with the fires of our grates, everybody borrows a light from his neighbor to kindle his own, which in turn is communicated to others, and each partakes of all. -- Voltaire
Truth is a fruit that can only be picked when it is very ripe. -- Voltaire
He is the man who knows everything and never dies. -- Voltaire
But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin. -- Voltaire
The famous physician Dumoulin said when dying, 'I leave two great physicians behind me, simple food and pure water.' -- Voltaire
Good God!" cried he, "I have killed my old master, my friend, my brother-in-law; I am the best man in the world, and yet I have already killed three men; and of these three two were priests. -- Voltaire
The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor. -- Voltaire
Minds differ still more than faces. -- Voltaire
Consequently they who assert that all is well have said a foolish thing, they should have said all is for the best. -- Voltaire
The Deluge: A punishment inflicted on the human race by an all-knowing God, who, through not having foreseen the wickedness of men, repented of having made them, and drowned them once for all to make them better - an act which, as we all know, was accompanied by the greatest success. -- Voltaire
Illusion is the first of all pleasures. -- Voltaire
The moment of meeting, and that of parting are the two greatest epochs of life as sayeth the great book of Zend. -- Voltaire
Freedom is to depend only on the law and not on men's whims. -- Voltaire
Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom. -- Voltaire
The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion. -- Voltaire
The most genuine and efficacious charity is that which greases the paws of the priests; such charity covers a multitude of sins. -- Voltaire
What can we say with certainty? -- Voltaire
Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes. -- Voltaire
It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice. -- Voltaire
Nothing is more annoying than to be obscurely hanged. -- Voltaire
He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado. "We do not pray to him at all," said the reverend sage. "We have nothing to ask of him. He has given us all we want, and we give him thanks continually. -- Voltaire
Do you think ... that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly? -- Voltaire
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. -- Voltaire
All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers. -- Voltaire
Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. -- Voltaire
Most of my life has been one tragedy after another, most of which hasn't happened. -- Voltaire
I suspected as much. -- Voltaire
An Opportunity of doing Mischief, says -Zoroaster-, offers itself a hundred Times a Day; but that of doing a Friend a good Office but once a Year. -- Voltaire
It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music. -- Voltaire
Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. -- Voltaire
I only know in general that the people we are going to see are very atrabilious. -- Voltaire
What will the preachers say? .. to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike. -- Voltaire
The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted. -- Voltaire
It is impossible to translate poetry. Can you translate music? -- Voltaire
What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide.
"That is because I know what life is," said Martin. -- Voltaire
The abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault. -- Voltaire
Shakespeare is a drunken savage with some imagination whose plays please only in London and Canada. -- Voltaire
Mankind have a little corrupted nature, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves; God has given them neither cannon of four-and-twenty pounders, nor bayonets; and yet they have made cannon and bayonets to destroy one another. -- Voltaire
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. -- Voltaire
Tell her stories to alleviate her inquietude; for stories always amuse the ladies, and it is only by interesting them that one can succeed in the world. Mambres -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
The best way to be boring is to include everything. -- Voltaire
My dear young lady, when you are in love, and jealous, and have been flogged by the Inquisition, there's no knowing what you may do. -- Voltaire
Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn't illegal. -- Voltaire
We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly. -- Voltaire
When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics. -- Voltaire
if a philosopher wishes to be useful to human society, he must announce a God. -- Voltaire
The nose has been formed to bear spectacles - thus we have spectacles. -- Voltaire
It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms. -- Voltaire
Humanly speaking, let us define truth, while waiting for a better definition as a statement of facts as they are -- Voltaire
Descartes gave sight to the blind. These saw the errors of antiquity and of the sciences. The path he struck out is since become boundless [ ... ] In fathoming this abyss no bottom has been found. We are now to examine what discoveries Sir Isaac Newton has made in it. -- Voltaire
The fate of a nation has often depended upon the good or bad digestion of a prime minister. -- Voltaire
The question of good and evil remains in irremediable chaos for those who seek to fathom it in reality. It is mere mental sport to the disputants, who are captives that play with their chains. -- Voltaire
The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic. -- Voltaire
And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea. -- Voltaire
But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor. -- Voltaire
FANATICISM is, to superstition, what delirium is to fever, and fury to anger : he who has ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities, and imaginations for prophecies, is an enthusiast ; and he, who sticks not at supporting his folly by murder, is a fanatic. -- Voltaire
He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad. -- Voltaire
When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy. -- Voltaire
If there are atheists, who is to be blamed if not the mercenary tyrants of souls who, in revolting us against their swindles, compel some feeble spirits to deny the God whom these monsters dishonour? -- Voltaire
Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce must not be reckoned. -- Voltaire
He who has heard the same thing told by 12,000 eye-witnesses has only 12,000 probabilities, which are equal to one strong probability, which is far from certain. -- Voltaire
So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer. -- Voltaire
The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself. -- Voltaire
What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideas of pleasure; for he who has but a moment of pleasure is not a happy man, in like manner that a moment of grief constitutes not a miserable one. -- Voltaire
In this country [England] it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others. The reference is to Admiral John Byng, who was executed in 1757 for failing to prevent the French from taking Minorca. -- Voltaire
It is the triumph of superior reason to live with folks who don't have any. -- Voltaire
Opinion rules the world, but in the long run it is the philosophers who shape opinion -- Voltaire
He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool. -- Voltaire
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best. -- Voltaire
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
A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live. -- Voltaire
Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel. -- Voltaire
A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right. -- Voltaire
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise. -- Voltaire
We offer up prayers to god only because we have made him after our own image. We treat him like a pasha, or a sultan, who is capable of being exasperated and appeased. -- Voltaire
A physician is one who pours drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less. -- Voltaire
It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. -- Voltaire
there is no such thing as chance. All is either a trial, or a punishment, or a reward, or a foresight. Remember the fisherman, who thought himself the most wretched of mankind. Oromazes sent thee to change his fate. Cease then, frail mortal, to dispute against what thou oughtest to adore." "But, -- Voltaire
He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first. -- Voltaire
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. -- Voltaire
As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites. -- Voltaire
Self-esteem is a balloon filled with wind, from which great tempests surge when it is pricked -- Voltaire
All is for the best in the best of possible worlds. -- Voltaire
In every author let us distinguish the man from his works. -- Voltaire
He who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity. -- Voltaire
Who demonstrated to him that the Bay of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned. -- Voltaire
In cities where peace and the arts flourish, men are more consumed by jealousy, worry, and anxiety than they are in cities under the blight of a besieging army. Private sorrows are more bitter than public suffering. -- Voltaire
When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself. -- Voltaire
The hallmark of a free society is that I may totally disapprove of what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it until I die. -- Voltaire
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination. -- Voltaire
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time. -- Voltaire
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing. -- Voltaire
Nature has always had more force than education. -- Voltaire
To learn who rules over you simply look to those you cannot criticize. -- Voltaire
The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil. -- Voltaire
What is history? The lie that everyone agrees on ... -- Voltaire
No opinion is worth burning your neighbor for. -- Voltaire
Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in the world is for the best. -- Voltaire
Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men. -- Voltaire
All our ancient history, as one of our wits remarked, is no more than accepted fiction. -- Voltaire
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose. -- Voltaire
Every one should be his own physician. We ought to assist, and not to force nature. Eat with moderation ... Nothing is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can procure digestion? Exercise. What will recruit strength? Sleep. -- Voltaire
The Pope is an idol whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed. -- Voltaire
Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause. -- Voltaire
Persistence with patience and prayer pays with profits, prosperity and peace of mind. -- Voltaire
The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great. -- Voltaire
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. -- Voltaire
For can anything be sillier than to insist on carrying a burden one would continually much rather throw to the ground? -- Voltaire
One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say -- Voltaire
The further I go, the more I am confirmed in the idea that systems of metaphysics are for philosophers are what novels are for women. -- Voltaire
Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. -- Voltaire
Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances. It is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind. -- Voltaire
Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them. -- Voltaire
It is not the answers you give, but the questions you ask. -- Voltaire
I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age. -- Voltaire
The atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability. -- Voltaire
A fondness for roving, for making a name for themselves in their onw country, and for boasting of what they had seen in their travels, was so strong in our two wanderers, that they resolved to be no longer happy; and demanded permission of the king to leave the country. -- Voltaire
The Jews have always been waiting for a Messiah, but their Messiah is for them only, not for us, a Messiah ho will give them mastery over the Christians. -- Voltaire
The infinitely small have a pride infinitely great. -- Voltaire
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature. -- Voltaire
It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection. -- Voltaire
We have our arts, the ancients had theirs ... We cannot raise obelisks a hundred feet high in a single piece, but our meridians are more exact. -- Voltaire
The right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature; like an inheritance, it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage. -- Voltaire
Friends should be preferred to kings. -- Voltaire
It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape. -- Voltaire
Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable. -- Voltaire
Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors. -- Voltaire
Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons. -- Voltaire
Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors. -- Voltaire
I don't know where I am going, but I am on my way. -- Voltaire
Whatever you do, trample down abuses, and love those who love you. Different translation: Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing superstition, and love those who love you. -- Voltaire
To make a vow for life is to make oneself a slave. -- Voltaire
The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it. -- Voltaire
I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests. -- Voltaire
Feeble verses are those which sin not against rules, but against genius. -- Voltaire
Inspiration: A peculiar effect of divine flatulence emitted by the Holy Spirit which hisses into the ears of a few chosen of God. -- Voltaire
Indolence is sweet, and its consequence bitter. -- Voltaire
Every abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself. -- Voltaire
The only reward to be expected from literature is contempt if one fails and hatred if one succeeds. -- Voltaire
The spirit of property doubles a man's strength. -- Voltaire
It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love. -- Voltaire
If you wish to converse with me, define your terms. -- Voltaire
The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool. -- Voltaire
I swear that, not being able to be yours, I will belong to no one. -- Voltaire
If you wish to obtain a great name or to found an establishment, be completely mad; but be sure that your madness corresponds with the turn and temper of your age. -- Voltaire
The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason. -- Voltaire
What is this optimism?" said Cacambo. "Alas!" said Candide, "it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong. -- Voltaire
The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great that every thing must soon be reduced to extracts and dictionaries. -- Voltaire
My life is a struggle. -- Voltaire
For the poetry of a text is largely produced by the fact that the wild chaos of the universe is therein, at one and the same time, expressed and controlled by a rhythm. In Candide both characteristics exist. -- Voltaire
I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste. -- Voltaire
Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities. -- Voltaire
To announce truths is an infallible receipt for being persecuted. -- Voltaire
I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write. -- Voltaire
Antiquity is full of eulogies of another more remote antiquity. -- Voltaire
Truth is a fruit which should not be plucked until it is ripe ... -- Voltaire
Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them. -- Voltaire
But whether he be, or whether he be not, I want bread. -- Voltaire
Ours [religion] is without a doubt the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and the most bloody to ever infect the world. -- Voltaire
If we would destroy the Christian religion, we must first of all destroy man's belief in the Bible. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction. -- Voltaire
A circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such sublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a quadrant and a little arithmetic. -- Voltaire
Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need. -- Voltaire
We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation. -- Voltaire
But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything
in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.'
'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure. -- Voltaire
Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers. -- Voltaire
History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below. -- Voltaire
In the matter of taxation, every privilege is an injustice. -- Voltaire
Our work keeps us free of three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty." As -- Voltaire
Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors. -- Voltaire
If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities. -- Voltaire
A torch lighted in the forests of America set all Europe in conflagration. -- Voltaire
He was unhappy only when he thought: and that is true of the majority of mankind. -- Voltaire
A historian has many duties ... the first is not to slander; the second is not to bore -- Voltaire
Our labour preserves us from three great evils
weariness, vice, and want. -- Voltaire
The only way to make men speak well of us is to do it. -- Voltaire
Opinion is called the queen of the world; it is so, for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to gradually drive away the usurper. -- Voltaire
Do well and you will have no need for ancestors. -- Voltaire
We adore each other, and yet are afraid to love; we are consumed with a passion which we both condemn. Zadig -- Voltaire
Twenty-volume folios will never make a revolution. It's the little pocket pamphlets that are to be feared. -- Voltaire
We are all guilty of the good we did not do -- Voltaire
So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. -- Voltaire
The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else's eyes. -- Voltaire
A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble. -- Voltaire
Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life. -- Voltaire
Contemplation of the stupidity which deems happiness possible almost made Voltaire happy. -- Voltaire
Can you really believe that a drop of urine is an infinity of monads, and that each of these has ideas, however obscure, of the universe as a whole? -- Voltaire
The Jews are of all peoples the grosses, the most ferocious, the most fanatical, and the most absurd. -- Voltaire
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow. -- Voltaire
It is only through timidity that states are lost. -- Voltaire
All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God. -- Voltaire
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker. -- Voltaire
What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. -- Voltaire
My soul is the mirror of the universe, and my body is its frame -- Voltaire
But how conceive a God supremely good/ Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves,/ Yet scatters evil with as large a hand?
[Written after an earthquake in Lisbon killed over 15,000 people] -- Voltaire
Injustice in the end produces independence. -- Voltaire
The more he became truly wise, the more he distrusted everything he knew. -- Voltaire
Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it. -- Voltaire
Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them? -- Voltaire
A yawn may not be polite, but at least it is an honest opinion. -- Voltaire
History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes. -- Voltaire
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. -- Voltaire
What can be more absurd than choosing to carry a burden that one really wants to throw to the ground? To detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? To caress the serpent that devours us and hug him close to our bosoms tillhe has gnawed into our hearts? -- Voltaire
The worthy administrators of justice are like a cat set to take care of a cheese, lest it should be gnawed by the mice. One bite of the cat does more damage to the cheese than twenty mice can do. -- Voltaire
Happiness is not the portion of man. -- Voltaire
All comes out even at the end of the day, and all comes out still more even when all the days are over. -- Voltaire
Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up. -- Voltaire
There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts. -- Voltaire
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. -- Voltaire
Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too. -- Voltaire
The biggest reward for a thing well done is to have done it. -- Voltaire
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others? -- Voltaire
Fanaticism is a monster that pretends to be the child of religion -- Voltaire
To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
Just for the sake of amusement, ask each passenger to tell you his story, and if you find a single one who hasn't often cursed his life, who hasn't told himself he's the most miserable man in the world, you can throw me overboard head first. -- Voltaire
Where some states possess an army, the Prussian Army possesses a state. -- Voltaire
It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions. -- Voltaire
We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence -- Voltaire
You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books. -- Voltaire
Let us confess it: evil strides the world. -- Voltaire
The superfluous is very necessary. -- Voltaire
Constant happiness is the philosopher's stone of the soul. -- Voltaire
We are rarely proud when we are alone. -- Voltaire
The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it. -- Voltaire
Did you hear that
did you have any choice about whether to hear it -- Voltaire
Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value - zero. -- Voltaire
Martin concluded that man was born to live in either the convulsions of distress or the lethargy of boredom. -- Voltaire
Beware of the words "internal security," for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor. -- Voltaire
Society therefore is an ancient as the world. -- Voltaire
This poem will never reach its destination. On Rousseau's Ode To Posterity -- Voltaire
To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature. -- Voltaire
The Flames? Already? -- Voltaire
The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood. -- Voltaire
It has taken seas of blood to drown the idol of despotism, but the English do not think they bought their laws too dearly. -- Voltaire
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything. -- Voltaire
Love has various lodgings; the same word does not always signify the same thing. -- Voltaire
It is fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions. -- Voltaire
There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them. -- Voltaire
This thought has met with the fate of many other useful projects, of being applauded and neglected. -- Voltaire
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do. -- Voltaire
The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men. -- Voltaire
had no need of a guide to learn ignorance -- Voltaire
It must also be noted that until the present time this malady, like religious controversy, has been wholly confined to the continent of Europe. -- Voltaire
I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker. -- Voltaire
It is difficult to free people from the chains they revere. -- Voltaire
You write your name in the snow Yet say nothing. -- Voltaire
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce. -- Voltaire
True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others. -- Voltaire
Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool. -- Voltaire
Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. -- Voltaire
A good imitation is the most perfect originality -- Voltaire
We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one -- Voltaire
It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes. -- Voltaire
Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them -- Voltaire
God should worshiped, not avenged. It is absurd for insects like ourselves to think we can avenge God. -- Voltaire
It is best one should quote what one doesn't understand at all in the language one knows the least -- Voltaire
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable. -- Voltaire
Every man can educate himself. It's shameful to put one's mind into the hands of those whom you wouldn't entrust with your money. Dare to think for yourself. -- Voltaire
I envy animals for two things - their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them. -- Voltaire
Changing a habit is hard work. But it's harder to find work that would be more fulfilling -- Voltaire
The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. -- Voltaire
An infallible method of making fanatics is to persuade before you instruct. -- Voltaire
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes. -- Voltaire
Tears are the silent language of grief -- Voltaire
Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it. -- Voltaire
Do you believe," said Martin, "that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?" "Yes, without doubt," said Candide. "Well, then," said Martin, "if hawks have always had the same character why should you imagine that men may have changed theirs? -- Voltaire
What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them? -- Voltaire
Fear could never make virtue. -- Voltaire
History is a collection of agreed upon lies. -- Voltaire
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts. -- Voltaire
In this country we find it pays to shoot an admiral from time to time to encourage the others. -- Voltaire
It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion. -- Voltaire
The ear is the avenue to the heart. -- Voltaire
Philosopher: A lover of wisdom, which is to say, Truth. -- Voltaire
Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting. -- Voltaire
Man is free the moment he wants to be. -- Voltaire
History contains little beyond a list of people who have accommodate themselves with other people's property. -- Voltaire
Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an impoisoned and acrid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways. -- Voltaire
a river always leads to some inhabited spot. If we do not find pleasant things we shall at least find new things." "With -- Voltaire
Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying? -- Voltaire
Independence in the end is the fruit of injustice. -- Voltaire
Better is the enemy of good. -- Voltaire
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares absurd, beware, lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life. -- Voltaire
The more you know, the less sure you are. -- Voltaire
Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world. -- Voltaire
The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing. -- Voltaire
To achieve a goal, a dream, a wish, you must plan it out for success! -- Voltaire
Work is often the father of pleasure. -- Voltaire
Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them. -- Voltaire
Errors flies from mouth to mouth, from pen to pen, and to destroy it takes ages. -- Voltaire
In all the disputes which have excited Christians against each other, Rome has invariably decided in favor of that opinion which tended most towards the suppression of the human intellect and the annihilation of the reasoning powers. -- Voltaire
If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it. -- Voltaire
All the persecutors declare against each other mortal war, while the philosopher, oppressed by them all, contents himself with pitying them. -- Voltaire
The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech. -- Voltaire
I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little important and on top of this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my hope. -- Voltaire
When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not? -- Voltaire
When truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to rise. There never has been a dispute as to whether there is daylight at noon. -- Voltaire
I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc.. -- Voltaire
The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days. -- Voltaire
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead. -- Voltaire
Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one. -- Voltaire
In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation. -- Voltaire
In the beginning God created man in His own image, and man has been trying to repay the favor ever since. -- Voltaire
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books. -- Voltaire
Self love is the instrument of our preservation. -- Voltaire
Man is free at the instant he wants to be. -- Voltaire
One feels like crawling on all fours after reading your work. -- Voltaire
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.) -- Voltaire
We are obliged to place ourselves on the level of our age before we can rise above it. -- Voltaire
Who are you, Nature?
I live in you;
for fifty years I have been seeking you,
and I have not found you yet. -- Voltaire
The superfluous is the most necessary. -- Voltaire
It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made. -- Voltaire
We cannot wish for that we know not. -- Voltaire
Writing is the painting of the voice. -- Voltaire
Our priests are not what a silly populace supposes; all their learning consists in our credulity. -- Voltaire
I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher. -- Voltaire
He was not the greatest of men but he was the greatest of kings. -- Voltaire
Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people. -- Voltaire
Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities. -- Voltaire
Once the people begin to reason, all is lost. -- Voltaire
You are very harsh.'
'I have seen the world. -- Voltaire
Los Padres have everything and the people have nothing; 'tis the masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part, I know nothing so divine as Los Padres who make war on Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors; who here kill Spaniards and at Madrid send them to Heaven. -- Voltaire
If we do not meet with agreeable things, we shall at least meet with something new. -- Voltaire
An opportunity fordoing an injury happens a hundred times a day, hut for doing good not once a year, says Zoroaster. -- Voltaire
What's Optimism?' asked Cacambo. 'I'm afraid to say,' said Candide, 'that it's a mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly. -- Voltaire
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. -- Voltaire
People have declaimed against luxury for two thousand years, in verse and prose, and people have always delighted in it. -- Voltaire
Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable. -- Voltaire
Why are the Jews hated? It is the inevitable result of their laws; they either have to conquer everybody or be hated by the whole human race ... -- Voltaire
How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! how horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite. -- Voltaire
A Frenchman who arrives in London, will find philosophy, like everything else, very much changed there. He had left the world a plenum, and he now finds it a vacuum. -- Voltaire
The best is the enemy of good. -- Voltaire
The burning of a little straw may hide the stars, but the stars outlast the smoke. -- Voltaire
History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions. -- Voltaire
Prejudice is opinion without judgement. -- Voltaire
The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart. -- Voltaire
Chess is a game which reflects most honor on human wit. -- Voltaire
Faith consists in believing what reason cannot. -- Voltaire
Slavery is also as ancient as war, and war as human nature. -- Voltaire
To a toad, what is beauty? A female with pop eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly, and a spotted back, -- Voltaire
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities. -- Voltaire
Shun idleness. It is rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals. -- Voltaire
If there's life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe's insane asylum. -- Voltaire
History should be written as philosophy. -- Voltaire
All pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were the serious short also. -- Voltaire
Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them. -- Voltaire
It is not enough to be exceptionally mad, licentious and fanatical in order to win a great reputation; it is still necessary to arrive on the scene at the right time. -- Voltaire
To really enjoy pleasures, you must know how to leave them. -- Voltaire
I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race. -- Voltaire
Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all. -- Voltaire
What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions, and to reason correctly from them? -- Voltaire
Men argue. Nature acts. -- Voltaire
Men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent. -- Voltaire
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. -- Voltaire
Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need. -- Voltaire
Love truth, and pardon error. -- Voltaire
A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity. -- Voltaire
Neither the Choice of his Friends, nor that of his Dishes, was the Result of Pride or Ostentation. He took Delight in appearing to be, what he actually was, and not in seeming to be what he was not; and by that Means, got a greater real Character than he actually aim'd at. -- Voltaire
Wisdom must yield to superstition's rules,
Who arms with bigot zeal the hand of fools. -- Voltaire
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. -- Voltaire
He is lifeless that is faultless. -- Voltaire
The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force. -- Voltaire
Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous. -- Voltaire
To paraphrase Voltaire: if they can make you believe in their absurdities, they can make you commit their atrocities. -- Voltaire
The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demigod. -- Voltaire
Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts. -- Voltaire
It is up to us to cultivate our garden. -- Voltaire
Now is not the time for making new enemies. -- Voltaire
What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy. -- Voltaire
If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor. -- Voltaire
He who dies before many witnesses always does so with courage. -- Voltaire
The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him. -- Voltaire
The more estimable the offender, the greater the torment. -- Voltaire
You guys, stop misattributing white nationalist quotes to me. Like, super seriously, it's not cool, dudes. -- Voltaire
How I like the boldness of the English, how I like the people who say what they think! -- Voltaire
Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.
[In a letter to Frederick the Great] -- Voltaire
You sweet delusions of my mind
(From the poem 'From Love to Friendship') -- Voltaire
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels. -- Voltaire
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls. -- Voltaire
Fairest lady," said Candide, "when a man is in love, jealous, and whipped by the Inquisition, he no longer knows what he's doing. -- Voltaire
The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death. -- Voltaire
Candide, terrified, amazed, desperate, all bloody, all palpitating, said to himself: If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? Well, -- Voltaire
Self love is like that instrument by which we propagate the species: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and it must be hidden. -- Voltaire
Doubt is not a very agreeable status, but certainty is a ridiculous one. -- Voltaire
Common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence. -- Voltaire
I have wanted to kill myself a million times,
but somehow I am still in love with life. -- Voltaire
Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste. -- Voltaire
What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat? -- Voltaire
The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third. -- Voltaire
Sect and error are synonymous. -- Voltaire
God's only excuse is that He doesn't exist, remarked Voltaire after a natural disaster that killed many people. Nietzsche loved this quote and wished he'd coined it! -- Voltaire
We are astonished at thought, but sensation is equally wonderful. -- Voltaire
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous. -- Voltaire
Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace. -- Voltaire
To the wicked, everything serves as pretext. -- Voltaire
Pleasure has its time; so too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation. -- Voltaire
Whenever an important event, a revolution, or a calamity turns to the profit of the church, such is always signalised as the Finger of God. -- Voltaire
The most amazing and effective inventions are not those which do most honour to the human genius. -- Voltaire
A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good. -- Voltaire
I keep to old books, for they teach me something; from the new I learn very little -- Voltaire
There are no sects in geometry. -- Voltaire
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth. -- Voltaire
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. -- Voltaire
Clever tyrants are never punished. -- Voltaire
How many things here do I not want (Voltaire when in London. -- Voltaire
All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they may be equally free -- Voltaire
A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention. -- Voltaire
The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy. -- Voltaire
I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health. -- Voltaire
The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom. -- Voltaire
Historians are gossips who tease the dead -- Voltaire
Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government? -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
These marranos go wherever there is money to be made. -- Voltaire
If Columbus in an island of America had not caught the disease, which poisons the source of generation, and often indeed prevents generation, we should not have chocolate and cochineal -- Voltaire
Almost all life depends on probabilities. -- Voltaire
The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person. -- Voltaire
All is but illusion and disaster. -- Voltaire
You have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you. -- Voltaire
Present opportunities are not to be neglected; they rarely visit us twice. -- Voltaire
A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady. -- Voltaire
The necessity of saying something, the perplexity of having nothing to say, and a desire of being witty, are three circumstances which alone are capable of making even the greatest writer ridiculous. -- Voltaire
History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up. -- Voltaire
The multitude of books is making us ignorant. -- Voltaire
It is, it seems to me, to stop one's eyes and understanding to maintain that there is no design in nature; and if there is design, there is an intelligent cause, there exists a God. People -- Voltaire
All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
Why should you think it so strange that in some countries there are monkeys which insinuates themselves into the good graces of the ladies; they are a fourth part human, as I am a fourth part Spaniard. -- Voltaire
It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack. -- Voltaire
The Jews are an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched. -- Voltaire
The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year. -- Voltaire
I serve your Beaune to my friends, but your Volnay I keep for myself. -- Voltaire
The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people. -- Voltaire
Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologo-cosmonigology. -- Voltaire
It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love. -- Voltaire
Let us cultivate our garden. -- Voltaire
God has punished the knave, and the devil has drowned the rest. -- Voltaire
God created women only to tame men. -- Voltaire
Every sensible man, every honest man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. But what shall we substitute in its place? you say. What? A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my relatives. I tell you to rid yourselves of this beast, and you ask me what you shall put in its place ? -- Voltaire
Dare to think for yourself. -- Voltaire
Luxury has been railed at for two thousand years, in verse and in prose, and it has always been loved. -- Voltaire
Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France. -- Voltaire
The women are never at a loss, God provides for them, let us run. -- Voltaire
To hold a pen is to be at war. -- Voltaire
I have no morals, yet I am a very moral person -- Voltaire
If one doesn't get what one wants in one world, one can always get it in another -- Voltaire
Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read. -- Voltaire
Oh! what a superior man," said Candide below his breath. "What a great genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him. -- Voltaire
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion. -- Voltaire
Time is man's most precious asset. All men neglect it; all regret the loss of it; nothing can be done without it. -- Voltaire
True power and true politeness are above vanity. -- Voltaire
There are men who can think no deeper than a fact. -- Voltaire
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung. -- Voltaire
He who seeks truth should be of no country. -- Voltaire
One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly. -- Voltaire
Fame is a heavy burden. -- Voltaire
Which is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more deadly; for atheism inspires no bloody passion whereas fanaticism does; atheism is opposed to crime and fanaticism causes crimes to be committed. -- Voltaire
Only your friends steal your books. -- Voltaire
One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence. -- Voltaire
Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege. -- Voltaire
When one man speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when a man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics. -- Voltaire
Descartes constructed as noble a road of science, from the point at which he found geometry to that to which he carried it, as Newton himself did after him ... He carried this spirit of geometry and invention into optics, which under him became a completely new art. -- Voltaire
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another. -- Voltaire
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property. -- Voltaire
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated. -- Voltaire
If we do not exert the right of eating our neighbor, it is because we have other means of making good cheer -- Voltaire
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. -- Voltaire
Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours. -- Voltaire
In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense. -- Voltaire
The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant. -- Voltaire
A State can be no better than the citizens of which it is composed. Our labour now is not to mould States but make citizens. -- Voltaire
What is not in nature can never be true. -- Voltaire
All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God. -- Voltaire
The road to the heart is the ear -- Voltaire
The composition of a tragedy requires testicles. -- Voltaire
Whatever you do, crush the infamy. -- Voltaire
Being a bird ain't all about flying and shitting from high places. -- Voltaire
He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice. -- Voltaire
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. -- Voltaire
Always beware of turning religion into metaphysics: Morality is its essence. -- Voltaire
Mortals are equal; their mask differs. -- Voltaire
The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Variant: The adjective is the enemy of the substantive. -- Voltaire
What would constitute useful history? That which should teach us our duties and our rights, without appearing to teach them. -- Voltaire
Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said. -- Voltaire
He who doesn't have the spirit of his time, has all its misery. -- Voltaire
Every evil begets some good. -- Voltaire
It is noble to write as one thinks; this is the privilege of humanity. -- Voltaire
It is proved ... that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose. -- Voltaire
Let each of us boldly and honestly say: How little it is that I really know! -- Voltaire
The heart has its own reasons that reason can't understand. -- Voltaire
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
Religion, far from being beneficial food, turns to poison in infected brains. -- Voltaire
Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one. -- Voltaire
A witty quote proves nothing. -- Voltaire
Love truth, but pardon error. -- Voltaire
One should always cite what one does not understand at all in the language one understands the least. -- Voltaire
It is the first law of friendship that it has to be cultivated. The second is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected. -- Voltaire
If the first law of friendship is that it has to be cultivated, the second law is to be indulgent when the first law has been neglected. -- Voltaire
History is a pack of lies we play on the dead. -- Voltaire
Go get yourself crucified and then rise on the third day. -- Voltaire
Crush the infamous thing! -- Voltaire
The only reward to be expected from the cultivation of literature is contempt if one fails and and hatred if one succeeds. -- Voltaire
Every beauty, when out of it's place, is a beauty no longer. -- Voltaire
He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
The superfluous, a very necessary thing. -- Voltaire
Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties. -- Voltaire
A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not temperate. -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. -- Voltaire
I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom. -- Voltaire
I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one. -- Voltaire
If mankind were born tomorrow it would divide into groups; each would scramble to invent their one and only god, and set about butchering each-other. -- Voltaire
All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God. -- Voltaire
I loved him as we always love for the first time; with idolatry and wild passion. -- Voltaire
No one is ignorant that our character and turn of mind are intimately connected with the water-closet. -- Voltaire
The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in. -- Voltaire
Music is the pathway to the heart. -- Voltaire
When man was put into the garden of eden, he was put there with the idea that he should work the land; and this proves that man was not born to be idle. -- Voltaire
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. -- Voltaire
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd. -- Voltaire
A good action is preferable to an argument. -- Voltaire
There is some pleasure in having no pleasure. -- Voltaire
If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones. -- Voltaire
Come! you presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure. -- Voltaire
All that is very well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden. -- Voltaire
We must cultivate our own garden. -- Voltaire
Learn to cultivate your own garden. -- Voltaire
One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact. -- Voltaire
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times. -- Voltaire
When thou eatest, give to the dogs, should they even bite thee. -- Voltaire
All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon -- Voltaire
Prejudice is an opinion without judgment. -- Voltaire
The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude. -- Voltaire
We find in them an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched. Still, we ought not to burn them. -- Voltaire
The policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a state equal to that of animals, whom nature has furnished with food, clothing, and shelter. -- Voltaire
The man who says to me, "Believe as I do, or God will damn you," will presently say, "Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you." -- Voltaire
Love is a cloth which imagination embroiders. -- Voltaire
Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees. -- Voltaire
An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination. -- Voltaire
Know that the secret of the arts is to correct nature. -- Voltaire
Everyone places his good where he can and has as much of it as he can, in his own way. -- Voltaire
Common sense is not so common. -- Voltaire
My life's dream has been a perpetual nightmare. -- Voltaire
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. -- Voltaire
Nobody thinks of giving an immortal soul to a flea. -- Voltaire
I know of only one serious thing on this earth, the growing of grapes. -- Voltaire
When we cannot use the compass of mathematics or the torch of experience ... it is certain we cannot take a single step forward. -- Voltaire
If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness. -- Voltaire
Faith consists in believing not what seems true, but what seems false to our understanding. -- Voltaire
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts. -- Voltaire
When it comes to money, everyone is of the same religion -- Voltaire
All succeeds with people who are sweet and cheerful. -- Voltaire
The way to be a bore is to say everything. -- Voltaire
Hope should no more be a virtue than fear; we fear and we hope, according to what is promised or threatened us. -- Voltaire
They are mad men (Jews), but you should not burn them for that. -- Voltaire
If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero. -- Voltaire
History never repeats itself. Man always does. -- Voltaire
Having lived with kings, I have become a king in my own home. -- Voltaire
This is no time to be making new enemies. -- Voltaire
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. -- Voltaire
Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst. -- Voltaire
Individual misfortunes give rise to the general good; so that the more individual misfortunes exist, the more all is fine. -- Voltaire
Theology is to religion what poisons are to food -- Voltaire
Will is wish, and liberty is power. -- Voltaire
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one. -- Voltaire
Happiness is a good that nature sells us. -- Voltaire
The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week. -- Voltaire
The best is the enemy of the good. -- Voltaire
To succeed in chaining the multitude, you must seem to wear the same fetters. -- Voltaire
Man was born to live either in a state of distracting inquietude or of lethargic disgust. -- Voltaire
Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world. -- Voltaire
I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue. -- Voltaire
History is the study of the world's crime -- Voltaire
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. -- Voltaire
It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part. -- Voltaire
The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity. -- Voltaire
If it's too silly to be said, it can always be sung. -- 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
Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony such as never been heard in hell. -- Voltaire
Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare. -- Voltaire
What can I hope when all is right? -- Voltaire
People will continue to commit atrocities as long as they believe in absurdities. -- Voltaire
Earth is an insane asylum, to which the other planets deport their lunatics. -- Voltaire
History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead. -- Voltaire
Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am. -- Voltaire
We adore, we invoke, we seek to appease, only that which we fear. -- Voltaire
Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth! -- Voltaire
History is fables agreed upon. -- Voltaire
we often meet with those whom we expected never to see more; -- Voltaire
The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error. -- Voltaire
Everything can be borne except contempt. -- Voltaire
Let all the laws be clear, uniform and precise for interpreting laws is almost always to corrupt them. -- Voltaire
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
Let us leave every man at liberty to seek into him and to lose himself in his ideas. -- Voltaire
History is the lie commonly agreed upon. -- Voltaire
To have preferences, but not exclusions. -- Voltaire
The malevolence of men revealed itself to his mind in all of its ugliness -- Voltaire
Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are. -- Voltaire
Your destiny is that of a man, your vows those of a god. -- Voltaire
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -- Voltaire
My friend," said the orator to him, "do you believe the Pope to be the Anti-Christ?"
"I have not heard it," answered Candide; "but whether he be, or whether he not, I want bread. -- Voltaire
It is not improbable that in hot countries, monkeys may have enslaved girls. -- Voltaire
Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively. -- Voltaire
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference. -- Voltaire
He who cannot shine by thought, seeks to bring himself into notice by a witticism. -- Voltaire
Perfect is the enemy of good. -- Voltaire
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it. -- Voltaire
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. -- Voltaire
Let us help one another to bear our burdens. -- Voltaire
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time. -- Voltaire
The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks. -- Voltaire
He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked. -- Voltaire
What is tolerance? It is a necessary consequence of humanity. We are all fallible, let us then pardon each other's follies. This is the first principle of natural right. -- Voltaire
Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most -- Voltaire
Not all citizens can be equally strong; but they can all be equally free. -- Voltaire
A witty saying proves nothing. -- Voltaire
The darkness is at its deepest. Just before the sunrise. -- Voltaire
It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. -- Voltaire
The perfect is the enemy of the good. -- Voltaire
The Baron's lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration.. -- Voltaire
You're a bitter man," said Candide.
That's because I've lived," said Martin. -- Voltaire
Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil. -- Voltaire
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living. -- Voltaire
Heaven made virtue; man, the appearance. -- Voltaire
I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species. -- Voltaire
A long dispute means both parties are wrong. -- Voltaire