Voltaire quotes

Quotation MarksVoltaire (1694 – 1778) French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist

Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter.

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

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

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

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.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

The secret of being boring is to say everything.

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Monsieur, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do.

History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.

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

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

Regimen is superior to medicine.

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

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

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

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

Prejudice is opinion without judgement.

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

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

A witty saying proves nothing.

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

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

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

God is always on the side of the big battalions.

Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.

There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.

God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

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

All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.

The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

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