Quotes by: TOPICSI.. AUTHORSI.. ABOUT USI..SEE ALSO

PAGE:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35

Voltaire Quotes

1 - 2

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

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

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

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

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, 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

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
Voltaire

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
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

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

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

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

Originality is nothing but 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

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
Voltaire

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
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

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

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

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
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 Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
Voltaire

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

The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
Voltaire

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
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

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

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.
Voltaire

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
Voltaire

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

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

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

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

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

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
Voltaire

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

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

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
Voltaire

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

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

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

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

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

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

To hold a pen is to be at war.
Voltaire

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

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

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.
Voltaire

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

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

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.
Voltaire

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

We are rarely proud when we are alone.
Voltaire

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

We cannot wish for that we know not.
Voltaire

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
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