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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
