Voltaire Quotes https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/voltaire

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

Voltaire

Tears are the silent language of grief.

Voltaire

Common sense is not so common.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

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

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

Voltaire

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

To hold a pen is to be at war.

Voltaire

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

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

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

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

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

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

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

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

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

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

Voltaire