Voltaire Quotes
French - Writer November 21, 1694 - May 30, 1778

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
Voltaire

The ear is the avenue to the heart.
Voltaire

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
Voltaire

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
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

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
Voltaire

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire

Common sense is not so common.
Voltaire

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
Voltaire

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
Voltaire

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
Voltaire

Tears are the silent language of grief.
Voltaire

By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.
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

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
Voltaire

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
Voltaire

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
Voltaire

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
Voltaire

To hold a pen is to be at war.
Voltaire

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.
Voltaire

Injustice in the end produces independence.
Voltaire

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
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

Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal.
Voltaire

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
Voltaire

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
Voltaire

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
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

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
Voltaire
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Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
Voltaire

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.
Voltaire

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
Voltaire

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.
Voltaire

A witty saying proves nothing.
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

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
Voltaire

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
Voltaire

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.
Voltaire

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
Voltaire

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
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

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

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.
Voltaire

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
Voltaire

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.
Voltaire

Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.
Voltaire

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
Voltaire

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
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

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
Voltaire

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
Voltaire

Better is the enemy of good.
Voltaire

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
Voltaire

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
Voltaire

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.
Voltaire

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
Voltaire

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
Voltaire

All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.
Voltaire

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
Voltaire

Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.
Voltaire

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.
Voltaire

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.
Voltaire

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.
Voltaire

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
Voltaire

The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.
Voltaire

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
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

Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
Voltaire

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
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

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.
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

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

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
Voltaire

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.
Voltaire

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
Voltaire

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.
Voltaire

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.
Voltaire

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.
Voltaire

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
Voltaire

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
Voltaire

Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
Voltaire

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
Voltaire

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.
Voltaire

History should be written as philosophy.
Voltaire

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
Voltaire

Nature has always had more force than education.
Voltaire

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
Voltaire

The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.
Voltaire

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
Voltaire

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
Voltaire

Clever tyrants are never punished.
Voltaire

The best is the enemy of the good.
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

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.
Voltaire

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.
Voltaire

We are rarely proud when we are alone.
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

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

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
Voltaire

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.
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

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
Voltaire

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.
Voltaire

Use, do not abuse... neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
Voltaire

I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.
Voltaire

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
Voltaire

It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.
Voltaire
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Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.
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

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

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
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

The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.
Voltaire

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
Voltaire

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.
Voltaire

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
Voltaire

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
Voltaire

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
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 ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.
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

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.
Voltaire

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.
Voltaire

My life is a struggle.
Voltaire

Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.
Voltaire

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
Voltaire

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
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

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
Voltaire

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
Voltaire

All styles are good except the tiresome kind.
Voltaire

We cannot wish for that we know not.
Voltaire

I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
Voltaire

I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
Voltaire

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
Voltaire

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.
Voltaire

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
Voltaire

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.
Voltaire

Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
Voltaire

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
Voltaire

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.
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

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
Voltaire

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.
Voltaire

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
Voltaire

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.
Voltaire

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
Voltaire

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.
Voltaire