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Quotes by 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

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
– Voltaire

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
– Voltaire
A company of tyrants is inaccessible to all seductions.
– Voltaire
All styles are good except the tiresome kind.
– Voltaire
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
– Voltaire
An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
– Voltaire
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
– Voltaire
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
– Voltaire
Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
– Voltaire
Better is the enemy of good.
– Voltaire
Business is the salt of life.
– 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
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.
– Voltaire
Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
– Voltaire
Clever tyrants are never punished.
– Voltaire
Common sense is not so common.
– Voltaire
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
– Voltaire
Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
– Voltaire
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
– Voltaire
Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.
– Voltaire
Everything is for the best in this best of possible worlds.
– Voltaire
Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.
– Voltaire
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
– Voltaire
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
– Voltaire
For take thy balance if thou be so wise And weigh the wind that under heaven doth blow; Or weigh the light that in the east doth rise; Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow.
– Voltaire
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
– Voltaire
Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
– Voltaire
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
– Voltaire
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
– Voltaire
He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
– Voltaire
He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
– Voltaire
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
– Voltaire
He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.
– Voltaire
He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
– Voltaire
He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.
– Voltaire
How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! how horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite.
– Voltaire
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.
– Voltaire
I advice you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying you annuities.
– Voltaire
I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.
– Voltaire
I hate women because they always know where things are.
– Voltaire
I have always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: My God, make our enemies very ridiculous! God has granted it to me.
– Voltaire
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
– Voltaire
I Thy God am the Light and the Mind which were before substance was divided from Spirit and darkness from Light.
– Voltaire
Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal.
– Voltaire
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
– 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
If we do not find anything pleasant, at least we shall find something new.
– Voltaire
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
– Voltaire
In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.
– 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
In the country of Westphalia, in the castle of the most noble Baron of Thunder-ten-tronckh, lived a youth whom nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition.
– Voltaire
In this country [England] it is thought well to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.
– Voltaire
Injustice in the end produces independence.
– Voltaire
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
– 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
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
– Voltaire
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
– Voltaire
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
– Voltaire
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
– Voltaire
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
– 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 said that the present is pregnant with the future.
– Voltaire
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.
– Voltaire
It is today, my dear, that I take a perilous leap.
– Voltaire
It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
– Voltaire
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
– Voltaire
Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
– 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
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
– Voltaire
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
– Voltaire
Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
– Voltaire
My life is a struggle.
– Voltaire
Nature has always had more force than education.
– Voltaire
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
– Voltaire
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
– Voltaire
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
– Voltaire
Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies.
– Voltaire
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
– Voltaire
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
– Voltaire
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.
– Voltaire
Originality is nothing by judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.
– Voltaire
Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.
– Voltaire
Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.
– Voltaire
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
– Voltaire
Prejudice, friend, govern the vulgar crowd.
– Voltaire
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
– Voltaire
Slavery is also as ancient as war, and was as human nature.
– Voltaire
Society therefore is an ancient as the world.
– 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
Tears are the silent language of grief.
– Voltaire
The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.
– Voltaire
The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.
– 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
The best is the enemy of the good.
– Voltaire
The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.
– Voltaire
The ear is the avenue to the heart.
– Voltaire
The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.
– 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
The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
– Voltaire