Famous Quotes By Voltaire


Famous Quotes by Voltaire
Famous Quotes by Voltaire
  1. All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
  2. All styles are good except the tiresome kind.
  3. All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
  4. An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
  5. Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
  6. Better is the enemy of good.
  7. Business is the salt of life.
  8. Common sense is not so common.
  9. Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
  10. 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.
  11. Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
  12. Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
  13. Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
  14. Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
  15. God gave us the gift of life it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
  16. God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
  17. God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
  18. He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
  19. He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend provided, of course, he really is dead.
  20. He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.
  21. He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
  22. History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.
  23. History should be written as philosophy.
  24. How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.
  25. I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.
  26. I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
  27. I hate women because they always know where things are.
  28. I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
  29. If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
  30. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
  31. If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
  32. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
  33. In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.
  34. Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
  35. Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
  36. 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.
  37. It is forbidden to kill therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
  38. It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
  39. 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.
  40. It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.
  41. It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
  42. It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
  43. It is vain for the coward to flee death follows close behind it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
  44. Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.
  45. 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.
  46. 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.
  47. Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
  48. Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
  49. Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
  50. Nature has always had more force than education.
  51. Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
  52. Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
  53. Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
  54. Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
  55. One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
  56. One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
  57. Perfection is attained by slow degrees it requires the hand of time.
  58. Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
  59. Society therefore is an ancient as the world.
  60. Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.
  61. Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
  62. Tears are the silent language of grief.
  63. The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.
  64. 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.
  65. The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
  66. The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
  67. The best is the enemy of the good.
  68. The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.
  69. The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
  70. The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
  71. 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.
  72. The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.
  73. The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
  74. The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
  75. The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.
  76. The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
  77. There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
  78. Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.
  79. To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
  80. To hold a pen is to be at war.
  81. To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
  82. Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors but they are seldom or ever inventors.
  83. We are all full of weakness and errors let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
  84. We are rarely proud when we are alone.
  85. 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.
  86. What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
  87. 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.
  88. What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.
  89. 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.
  90. When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

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