Voltaire Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous Voltaire Quotes, collected over the years from a variety of sources. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

François-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his nom de plume Voltaire, he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—especially the Roman Catholic Church—and of slavery. Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.

Quotes From Voltaire

A circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such sublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a quadrant and a little arithmetic. – Voltaire

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live. – Voltaire

A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity. – Voltaire

A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right. – Voltaire

A good action is preferable to an argument. – Voltaire

A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not temperate. – Voltaire

A good imitation is the most perfect originality. – Voltaire

A historian has many duties… the first is not to slander; the second is not to bore. – Voltaire

A lady of honor may be raped once, but it strengthens her virtue. – Voltaire

A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good. – Voltaire

A long dispute means both parties are wrong. – Voltaire

A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble. – Voltaire

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady. – Voltaire

A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely to reconcile health with intemperance. – Voltaire

A physician is one who pours drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less. – Voltaire

A small number of choice books are sufficient. – Voltaire

A torch lighted in the forests of America set all Europe in conflagration. – Voltaire

A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people’s attention. – Voltaire

A woman can keep one secret the secret of her age. – Voltaire

A yawn may not be polite, but at least it is an honest opinion. – Voltaire

Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft; but we do not steal that which is given to us. – Voltaire

Alas…I too have known love, that ruler of hearts, that soul of our soul: it’s never brought me anything except one kiss and twenty kicks in the rump. How could such a beautiful cause produce such an abominable effect on you? – Voltaire

All events are linked together in the best of possible worlds; after all, if you had not been driven from a fine castle by being kicked in the backside for love of Miss Cunegonde, if you hadn’t been sent before the Inquisition, if you hadn’t traveled across America on foot, if you hadn’t given a good sword thrust to the baron, if you hadn’t lost all your sheep from the good land of Eldorado, you wouldn’t be sitting here eating candied citron and pistachios. – That is very well put, said Candide, but we must cultivate our garden. – Voltaire

All is a miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of stars, the activity of light, the life of all animals, all are grand and perpetual miracles. – Voltaire

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All is but illusion and disaster. – Voltaire

All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. – Voltaire

All kinds are good except the kind that bores you. – Voltaire

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

All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers. – Voltaire

All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws. – Voltaire

All people are equal, it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes the difference. – Voltaire

All pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were the serious short also. – Voltaire

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

All styles are good except the tiresome kind. – Voltaire

All succeeds with people who are sweet and cheerful. – Voltaire

All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon. – Voltaire

All the arts are brothers; each one is a light to the others. – Voltaire

All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they may be equally free. – Voltaire

All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books. – Voltaire

All the persecutors declare against each other mortal war, while the philosopher, oppressed by them all, contents himself with pitying them. – Voltaire

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

Almost all life depends on probabilities. – Voltaire

Among the illusions which have invested our civilization is an absolute belief that the solutions to our problems must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise… The reality is that our problems are largely the product of that application. – Voltaire

An admiral should be put to death now and then to encourage the others. – Voltaire

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination. – Voltaire

An infallible method of making fanatics is to persuade before you instruct. – Voltaire

And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea. – Voltaire

Animals have these advantages over man: They have no theologians to instruct them, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills. – Voltaire

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. – Voltaire

Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth! – Voltaire

Answer me, you who believe that animals are only machines. Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all? – Voltaire

Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote. – Voltaire

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. – Voltaire

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

Anything too stupid to be said is sung. – Voltaire

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

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities. – Voltaire

As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites. – Voltaire

Ask a toad what is beauty …; he will answer that it is a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat mouth, a yellow belly and a brown back. – Voltaire

Ask a toad what is beauty? … a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat mouth, a yellow belly and a brown back. – Voltaire

Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people. – Voltaire

Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare. – Voltaire

Before receiving your instruction, I must tell you what happened to me one day. I had just had a closet built at the end of my garden. I heard a mole arguing with a cockchafer; ‘Here’s a fine structure,’ said the mole, ‘it must have been a very powerful mole who did this work.’ ‘You’re joking,’ said the cockchafer; ‘it’s a cockchafer full of genius who is the architect of this building.’ From that moment I resolved never to argue. – Voltaire

Being a bird ain’t all about flying and shitting from high places. – Voltaire

Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them. – Voltaire

Better is the enemy of good. – Voltaire

Beware of the words “internal security,” for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor. – Voltaire

But for what purpose was the earth formed?” asked Candide. “To drive us mad,” replied Martin. – Voltaire

But in this country it is necessary, now and then, to put one admiral to death in order to inspire the others to fight. – Voltaire

But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor. – Voltaire

But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything–in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.’ ‘You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure. – Voltaire

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

Canada: A few acres of snow. – Voltaire

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

Change everything except your loves. – Voltaire

Changing a habit is hard work. But it’s harder to find work that would be more fulfilling. – Voltaire

Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it. – Voltaire

Chess is a game which reflects most honor on human wit. – Voltaire

Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world. – Voltaire

Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. – Voltaire

Clever tyrants are never punished. – Voltaire

Come! you presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure. – Voltaire

Common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence. – Voltaire

Common sense is not so common. – Voltaire

Constant happiness is the philosopher’s stone of the soul. – Voltaire

Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here. – Voltaire

Dare to think for yourself. – Voltaire

Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government? – Voltaire

Descartes constructed as noble a road of science, from the point at which he found geometry to that to which he carried it, as Newton himself did after him. … He carried this spirit of geometry and invention into optics, which under him became a completely new art. – Voltaire

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day. – Voltaire

Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it. – Voltaire

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

Do well and you will have no need for ancestors. – Voltaire

Do you think… that men have always massacred each other, as they do today? Have they always been liars, cheats, traitors, brigands, weak, flighty, cowardly, envious, gluttonous, drunken, grasping, and vicious, bloody, backbiting, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical, and silly? – Voltaire

Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less in human beings of whom they know nothing. – Voltaire

Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all. – Voltaire

Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are. – Voltaire

Don’t think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money. – Voltaire

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. – Voltaire

Doubt is not a very agreeable status, but certainty is a ridiculous one. – Voltaire

Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous. – 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

Earth is an insane asylum, to which the other planets deport their lunatics. – Voltaire

England has forty-two religions and only two sauces. – Voltaire

Errors flies from mouth to mouth, from pen to pen, and to destroy it takes ages. – Voltaire

Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege. – Voltaire

Every abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself. – Voltaire

Every beauty, when out of it’s place, is a beauty no longer. – Voltaire

Every man can educate himself. It’s shameful to put one’s mind into the hands of those whom you wouldn’t entrust with your money. Dare to think for yourself. – Voltaire

Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time. – Voltaire

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

Every man is the creature of the age in which he lives; very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time. – Voltaire

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

Every one should be his own physician. We ought to assist, and not to force nature. Eat with moderation…Nothing is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can procure digestion? Exercise. What will recruit strength? Sleep. – Voltaire

Every sensible man, every honest man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. But what shall we substitute in its place? you say. What? A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my relatives. I tell you to rid yourselves of this beast, and you ask me what you shall put in its place? – Voltaire

Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.” “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.” “Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.” “If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities. – Voltaire

Everyone places his good where he can and has as much of it as he can, in his own way. – Voltaire

Everything can be borne except contempt. – Voltaire

Everything happens through immutable laws, …everything is necessary… There are, some persons say, some events which are necessary and others which are not. It would be very comic that one part of the world was arranged, and the other were not; that one part of what happens had to happen and that another part of what happens did not have to happen. If one looks closely at it, one sees that the doctrine contrary to that of destiny is absurd; but there are many people destined to reason badly; others not to reason at all others to persecute those who reason. – Voltaire

Everything I see about me is sowing the seeds of a revolution that is inevitable, though I shall not have the pleasure of seeing it. The lightning is so close at hand that it will strike at the first chance, and then there will be a pretty uproar. The young are fortunate, for they will see fine things. – Voltaire

Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. – Voltaire

Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said. – Voltaire

Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion. – Voltaire

Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness. – Voltaire

Excellently observed”, answered Candide; “but let us cultivate our garden. – Voltaire

Faith consists in believing not what seems true, but what seems false to our understanding. – Voltaire

Faith consists in believing what reason cannot. – Voltaire

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed. – Voltaire

Fame is a heavy burden. – Voltaire

Fanaticism is a monster that pretends to be the child of religion. – Voltaire

Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked. – Voltaire

Fear could never make a virtue. – Voltaire

Fear follows crime and is its punishment. – Voltaire

Feeble verses are those which sin not against rules, but against genius. – Voltaire

Fools admire everything in an author of reputation. – Voltaire

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste. – Voltaire

For can anything be sillier than to insist on carrying a burden one would continually much rather throw to the ground? – Voltaire

For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm. – Voltaire

Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is. – Voltaire

Friends should be preferred to kings. – Voltaire

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

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

Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France. – Voltaire

Give me the patience for the small things of life, courage for the great trials of life. Help me to do my best each day and then go to sleep knowing God is awake. – Voltaire

Go get yourself crucified and then rise on the third day. – Voltaire

God created sex. Priests created marriage. – Voltaire

God created woman to tame man. – Voltaire

God created women only to tame men. – Voltaire

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

God has punished the knave, and the devil has drowned the rest. – Voltaire

God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. – Voltaire

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

God is always on the side of the big battalions. – Voltaire

God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions. – Voltaire

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

God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart to the finest verses chanted by the wicked. – Voltaire

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers. – Voltaire

Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them. – Voltaire

had no need of a guide to learn ignorance – Voltaire

Happiness is a good that nature sells us. – Voltaire

Happiness is not the portion of man. – Voltaire

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

He is lifeless that is faultless. – Voltaire

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

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

He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado. “We do not pray to him at all,” said the reverend sage. “We have nothing to ask of him. He has given us all we want, and we give him thanks continually. – Voltaire

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

He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice. – Voltaire

He was not the greatest of men but he was the greatest of kings. – Voltaire

He who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity. – Voltaire

He who cannot shine by thought, seeks to bring himself into notice by a witticism. – Voltaire

He who dies before many witnesses always does so with courage. – Voltaire

He who doesn’t have the spirit of his time, has all its misery. – Voltaire

He who has heard the same thing told by 12,000 eye-witnesses has only 12,000 probabilities, which are equal to one strong probability, which is far from certain. – Voltaire

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

He who is involved in ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for reality, and his own imagination for prophesy, is a fanatical novice of great hope and promise, and will soon advance to the higher stage and kill men for the love of God. – Voltaire

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

He who seeks truth should be of no country. – Voltaire

He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool. – Voltaire

Heaven made virtue; man, the appearance. – Voltaire

Historians are gossips who tease the dead. – Voltaire

History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions. – Voltaire

History contains little beyond a list of people who have accommodate themselves with other people’s property. – Voltaire

History in general is a collection of crimes, follies, and misfortunes among which we have now and then met with a few virtues, and some happy times. – Voltaire

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

History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes. L’histoire n’est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs. – Voltaire

History is fables agreed upon. – Voltaire

History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up. – Voltaire

History is just the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes. – Voltaire

History is no more than the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes. – Voltaire

History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead. – Voltaire

History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below. – Voltaire

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes. – Voltaire

History is the lie commonly agreed upon. – Voltaire

History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction. – Voltaire

History is the study of the world’s crime. – Voltaire

History never repeats itself. Man always does. – Voltaire

History should be written as philosophy. – Voltaire

Hope should no more be a virtue than fear; we fear and we hope, according to what is promised or threatened us. – Voltaire

How I like the boldness of the English, how I like the people who say what they think! – Voltaire

How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! how horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite. – Voltaire

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted. – Voltaire

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left. – Voltaire

I also know that we should cultivate our gardens. – Voltaire

I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little important and on top of this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my hope. – Voltaire

I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. – Voltaire

I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests. – Voltaire

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

I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life that he had wasted his time. It must be admitted that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men that the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship towers considerably above him who imagined innate ideas. – Voltaire

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker. – Voltaire

I confess that my stomach does not take to this style of cooking. I cannot accept calves sweetbreads swimming in a salty sauce, nor can I eat mince consisting of turkey, hare, and rabbit, which they try to persuade me comes from a single animal… As for the cooks, I really cannot be expected to put up with this ham essence, nor the excessive quantity of morels and other mushrooms, pepper, and nutmeg with which they disguise perfectly good food. – Voltaire

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

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

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it. – Voltaire

I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way. – Voltaire

I envy animals for two things – their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them. – Voltaire

I hate women because they always know where things are. – Voltaire

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches. Alice Roosevelt Longworth Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. – Voltaire

I have been a hundred times on the point of killing myself, but still was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts. What can be more absurd than choosing to carry a burden that one really wants to throw to the ground? To detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? To caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts? – Voltaire

I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health. – 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 lost the half of myself – a soul for which mine was made. – 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

I have no morals, yet I am a very moral person. – Voltaire

“I have no more than twenty acres of ground,” he replied, “the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children; and our labor keeps off from us the three great evils – boredom, vice, and want.” – Voltaire

I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue. – Voltaire

I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away? – Voltaire

I have wanted to kill myself a million times, but somehow I am still in love with life. – Voltaire

I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher. – Voltaire

I keep to old books, for they teach me something; from the new I learn very little. – Voltaire

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

I know of no great man except those who have rendered great services to the human race. – Voltaire

I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age. – Voltaire

I loved him as we always love for the first time; with idolatry and wild passion. – Voltaire

I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths. – Voltaire

I never was ruined but twice – once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one. – Voltaire

I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste. – Voltaire

I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain. – Voltaire

I serve your Beaune to my friends, but your Volnay I keep for myself. – Voltaire

I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley — in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered — or simply to sit here and do nothing?’ That is a hard question,’ said Candide. – Voltaire

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

I should stop myself from dying if a good joke or a good idea occurred to me. – Voltaire

I swear that, not being able to be yours, I will belong to no one. – Voltaire

I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one. – Voltaire

I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species. – Voltaire

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

Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up. – Voltaire

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

If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it. – Voltaire

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

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him; let us worship God through Jesus if we must – if ignorance has so far prevailed that this name can still be spoken in all seriousness without being taken as a synonym for rapine and carnage. Every sensible man, every honourable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror… – Voltaire

If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor. – Voltaire

If God made us in his image, we have certainly returned the compliment. – Voltaire

If it’s too silly to be said, it can always be sung. – Voltaire

If mankind were born tomorrow it would divide into groups; each would scramble to invent their one and only god, and set about butchering each-other. – Voltaire

If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing. – Voltaire

If the bookseller happens to desire a privilege for his merchandise, whether he is selling Rabelais or the Fathers of the Church, the magistrate grants the privilege without answering for the contents of the book. – Voltaire

If there are atheists, who is to be blamed if not the mercenary tyrants of souls who, in revolting us against their swindles, compel some feeble spirits to deny the God whom these monsters dishonour? – Voltaire

If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero. – Voltaire

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him. – Voltaire

If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him. – Voltaire

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other’s throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness. – Voltaire

If there’s life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe’s insane asylum. – Voltaire

If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? – Voltaire

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities. – Voltaire

If we do not exert the right of eating our neighbor, it is because we have other means of making good cheer. – Voltaire

If we do not find anything pleasant, at least we shall find something new. – Voltaire

If we would destroy the Christian religion, we must first of all destroy man’s belief in the Bible. – Voltaire

If you are attacked as regards your style, never reply; it is for your work alone to make answer. – Voltaire

If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other’s throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace. – Voltaire

If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones. – Voltaire

If you want to kill Christianity you must abolish Sunday. – Voltaire

If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize. – Voltaire

If you wish to converse with me, define your terms. – Voltaire

If you wish to obtain a great name or to found an establishment, be completely mad; but be sure that your madness corresponds with the turn and temper of your age. – Voltaire

Illusion is the first of all pleasures. – Voltaire

In all the disputes which have excited Christians against each other, Rome has invariably decided in favor of that opinion which tended most towards the suppression of the human intellect and the annihilation of the reasoning powers. – Voltaire

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

In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense. – Voltaire

In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten. – Voltaire

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. – 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

In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it. – Voltaire

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

In the matter of taxation, every privilege is an injustice. – Voltaire

In this country [England] it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others. The reference is to Admiral John Byng, who was executed in 1757 for failing to prevent the French from taking Minorca. – Voltaire

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

Independence in the end is the fruit of injustice. – Voltaire

Individual misfortunes give rise to the general good; so that the more individual misfortunes exist, the more all is fine. – Voltaire

Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter. – Voltaire

Injustice in the end produces independence. – Voltaire

Inspiration: A peculiar effect of divine flatulence emitted by the Holy Spirit which hisses into the ears of a few chosen of God. – Voltaire

Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying? – Voltaire

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

It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God? – Voltaire

It has taken seas of blood to drown the idol of despotism, but the English do not think they bought their laws too dearly. – Voltaire

It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it’s a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. – Voltaire

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge – Voltaire

It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music. – Voltaire

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

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. – Voltaire

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

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

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

It is fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions. – Voltaire

It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books. – Voltaire

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

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

It is impossible to translate poetry. Can you translate music? – Voltaire

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

It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love. – Voltaire

It is new fancy rathert than taste which produces so many new fashions. – Voltaire

It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made. – Voltaire

It is not enough to be exceptionally mad, licentious and fanatical in order to win a great reputation; it is still necessary to arrive on the scene at the right time. – Voltaire

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

It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence. – 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 not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love. – Voltaire

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection. – Voltaire

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

It is not the answers you give, but the questions you ask. – Voltaire

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

It is only through timidity that states are lost. – Voltaire

It is ourselves alone that make our days lucky or unlucky. Away, then, with a vain prejudice, the invention of the priesthood, which has been transmitted by our ancestors to an ignorant people. – Voltaire

It is proved…that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose. – Voltaire

It is reported in the supplement of the council of Nicæan that the fathers, being very perplexed to know which were the cryphal or apocryphal books of the Old and New Testaments, put them all pell-mell on an altar, and the books to be rejected fell to the ground. It is a pity that this eloquent procedure has not survived. – Voltaire

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

It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack. – Voltaire

It is the first law of friendship that it has to be cultivated. The second is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected. – Voltaire

It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow. – Voltaire

It is the poverty connected with our species which subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence. – Voltaire

It is the triumph of superior reason to live with folks who don’t have any. – Voltaire

It is up to us to cultivate our garden. – Voltaire

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

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part, the rest are lost in the multitude. – Voltaire

It is with books as with the fires of our grates, everybody borrows a light from his neighbor to kindle his own, which in turn is communicated to others, and each partakes of all. – Voltaire

It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms. – Voltaire

It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion. – Voltaire

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother’s womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him. – Voltaire

It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes. – Voltaire

It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force than the minds of a single village. – Voltaire

It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice. – Voltaire

Je ne suis pas d’accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je d‚fendrai jusqu’… la mort le droit que vous avez de le dire/ I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it. – Voltaire

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

Judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers. – Voltaire

Know that the secret of the arts is to correct nature. – Voltaire

Language is a very difficult thing to put into words. – Voltaire

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.) – Voltaire

Learn to cultivate your own garden. – Voltaire

Let all the laws be clear, uniform and precise for interpreting laws is almost always to corrupt them. – Voltaire

Let each of us boldly and honestly say: How little it is that I really know! – 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

Let us confess it: evil strides the world. – Voltaire

Let us cultivate our garden. – Voltaire

Let us help one another to bear our burdens. – Voltaire

Let us leave every man at liberty to seek into him and to lose himself in his ideas. – Voltaire

Let us meet four times a year in a grand temple with music, and thank God for all his gifts. There is one sun. There is one God. Let us have one religion. Then all mankind will be brethren. – Voltaire

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

Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the fanatics: they are sick men in delirium who want to chastise their doctors. Let us assuage their ills, and never embitter them, and let us pour drop by drop into their souls the divine balm of toleration, which they would reject with horror if it were offered to them all at once. – Voltaire

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

Liberty of thought is the life of the soul. – Voltaire

Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting. – Voltaire

Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden. – 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

Los Padres have everything and the people have nothing; ’tis the masterpiece of reason and justice. For my part, I know nothing so divine as Los Padres who make war on Kings of Spain and Portugal and in Europe act as their confessors; who here kill Spaniards and at Madrid send them to Heaven. – 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

Love has various lodgings; the same word does not always signify the same thing. – Voltaire

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

Love is a cloth which imagination embroiders. – Voltaire

Love truth, and pardon error. – Voltaire

Luck is a word devoid of sense; nothing can exist without a cause. – Voltaire

Luxury has been railed at for two thousand years, in verse and in prose, and it has always been loved. – Voltaire

Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively. – Voltaire

Man can have only a certain number of teeth, hair and ideas; there comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth, hair and ideas. – Voltaire

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

Man is not born wicked; he becomes so, as he becomes sick. – Voltaire

Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason. – Voltaire

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. – Voltaire

Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom. – Voltaire

May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies. – Voltaire

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

Men appear to prefer ruining one another’s fortunes, and cutting each other’s throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness. – Voltaire

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

Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel that when we find one who is only weak, we are too happy. – Voltaire

Men argue, nature acts. – Voltaire

Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an impoisoned and acrid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways. – Voltaire

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

Men must have somewhat altered the course of nature; for they were not born wolves, yet they have become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four-pounders or bayonets, yet they have made themselves bayonets and guns to destroy each other. In the same category I place not only bankruptcies, but the law which carries off the bankrupts’ effects, so as to defraud their creditors. – Voltaire

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

Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts. Ils ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices, et emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées. – Voltaire

Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts. – Voltaire

Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create. – Voltaire

Men who have seen life and death… as an unbroken continuum, the swinging pendulum, have been able to move as freely into death as they walked through life. Socrates went to the grave almost perplexed by his companions’ tears. – Voltaire

Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all. – Voltaire

Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities. – Voltaire

Men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent. – Voltaire

Meslier was the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the Christian religion. – Voltaire

Minds differ still more than faces. – Voltaire

Monsieur l’abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write. – Voltaire

Mortals are equal; their mask differs. – Voltaire

Most of my life has been one tragedy after another, most of which hasn’t happened. – Voltaire

Music is the pathway to the heart. – Voltaire

My life is a struggle. – Voltaire

My life’s dream has been a perpetual nightmare. – Voltaire

My prayer to God is a very short one “Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous!” God has granted it. – Voltaire

my soul is the mirror of the universe, and my body is its frame. – Voltaire

Nature has always had more force than education. – Voltaire

Nature has made us frivolous to console us for our miseries. – Voltaire

Needless to say since Christ’s expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die. – Voltaire

Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it. – Voltaire

No one is ignorant that our character and turn of mind are intimately connected with the water-closet. – Voltaire

No opinion is worth burning your neighbor for. – Voltaire

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. – Voltaire

No snowflake in an avalanch ever feels responsible. – Voltaire

No, nothing has the power to part me from you; our love is based upon virtue, and will last as long as our lives. – Voltaire

Not all citizens can be equally strong; but they can all be equally free. – Voltaire

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense. – Voltaire

Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony such as never been heard in hell. – Voltaire

Nothing is more annoying than to be obscurely hanged. – Voltaire

Nothing is so common as to imitate one’s enemies, and to use their weapons. – Voltaire

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

Now is not the time for making new enemies. – Voltaire

Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies. – Voltaire

Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies.” (Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.) – Voltaire

Now, you receive all your ideas; therefore you receive your wish, you wish therefore necessarily. The word “liberty” does not therefore belong in any way to your will….The will, therefore, is not a faculty that one can call free. A free will is an expression absolutely void of sense, and what the scholastics have called will of indifference, that is to say willing without cause, is a chimera unworthy of being combated. – Voltaire

Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best. – Voltaire

Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most – 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

Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them. – Voltaire

Once the people begin to reason, all is lost. – Voltaire

Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares absurd, beware, lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life. – Voltaire

One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence. – Voltaire

One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say. – Voltaire

One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion. – Voltaire

One feels like crawling on all fours after reading your work. – 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

One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly. – Voltaire

One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact. – Voltaire

Only your friends steal your books. – Voltaire

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

Opinion is called the queen of the world; it is so, for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to gradually drive away the usurper. – Voltaire

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

Optimism,” said Cacambo, “What is that?” “Alas!” replied Candide, “It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.

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

Originality is nothing but judicious plagiarism. – Voltaire

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

Our character is composed of our ideas and our feelings: and, since it has been proved that we give ourselves neither feelings nor ideas, our character does not depend on us. If it did depend on us, there is nobody who would not be perfect. If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing. – Voltaire

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

Our labour preserves us from three great evils — weariness, vice, and want. – Voltaire

Our priests are not what a silly populace supposes; all their learning consists in our credulity. – Voltaire

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. – Voltaire

Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero. – Voltaire

Paradise is where I am. – Voltaire

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

People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines…. It appears to me, besides, that such people can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel. – Voltaire

Perfect is the enemy of good. – Voltaire

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

Persistence with patience and prayer pays with profits, prosperity and peace of mind. – Voltaire

Philosopher: A lover of wisdom, which is to say, Truth. – Voltaire

Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them. – Voltaire

Pleasure has its time; so too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation. – Voltaire

Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures. – Voltaire

Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls. – Voltaire

Prejudice is an opinion without judgment. – Voltaire

Prejudice is opinion without judgement. – Voltaire

Prejudices are what fools use for reason. – Voltaire

Prejudices are what rule the vulgar crowd. – Voltaire

Present opportunities are not to be neglected; they rarely visit us twice. – Voltaire

Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life. – Voltaire

Quand celui à qui l’on parle ne comprend pas et celui qui parle ne se comprend pas, c’est de la métaphysique When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics. – Voltaire

Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace. – Voltaire

Regimen is superior to medicine, especially as, from time immemorial, out of every hundred physicians, ninety-eight are charlatans. – Voltaire

Regimen is superior to medicine. – Voltaire

Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.v

Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees. – 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

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

say, “Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you – Voltaire

Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities. – Voltaire

Self-love is the instrument of our preservation. – Voltaire

Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed. – Voltaire

Shakespeare is a drunken savage with some imagination whose plays please only in London and Canada. – Voltaire

She blushed and so did he. She greeted him in a faltering voice, and he spoke to her without knowing what he was saying. – Voltaire

Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals. – Voltaire

Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were of course exterminated. – Voltaire

Slavery is also as ancient as war, and war as human nature. – Voltaire

So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one’s fatherland is to wish evil to one’s neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer. – Voltaire

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. – Voltaire

Society therefore is as 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

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

Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors. – 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

Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them. – Voltaire

Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them. – Voltaire

Tears are the silent language of grief. – Voltaire

‘That is indisputable,’ was the answer, ‘but in this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.’ – Voltaire

The abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault. – Voltaire

The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Variant: The adjective is the enemy of the substantive. – 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 consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of the citizens to give to the other. – 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 atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability. – 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 include everything. – Voltaire

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out. – Voltaire

The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart. – Voltaire

The biggest reward for a thing well done is to have done it. – Voltaire

The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor. – Voltaire

The composition of a tragedy requires testicles. – Voltaire

The darkness is at its deepest. Just before the sunrise. – Voltaire

The Deluge: A punishment inflicted on the human race by an all-knowing God, who, through not having foreseen the wickedness of men, repented of having made them, and drowned them once for all to make them better – an act which, as we all know, was accompanied by the greatest success. – Voltaire

The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy. – Voltaire

The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important objects of philosophy. – Voltaire

The ear is the avenue to the heart. – Voltaire

The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people. – Voltaire

The famous physician Dumoulin said when dying, ‘I leave two great physicians behind me, simple food and pure water.’ – Voltaire

The fate of a nation has often depended upon the good or bad digestion of a prime minister. – Voltaire

The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool. – 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 great consolation in life is to say what one thinks. – Voltaire

The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks. – Voltaire

The hallmark of a free society is that I may totally disapprove of what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it until I die. – Voltaire

Voltaire

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The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude. – Voltaire

The harmony of a concert, to which you listen with delight, must have on certain classes of minute animals the effect of terrible thunder; perhaps it kills them. – Voltaire

The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors. – Voltaire

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

The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe. – Voltaire

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

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great. – Voltaire

The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him. – Voltaire

The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous. – 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 interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists. – Voltaire

The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters; always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous – cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity. – Voltaire

The Jews are of all peoples the grosses, the most ferocious, the most fanatical, and the most absurd. – Voltaire

The Jews have always been waiting for a Messiah, but their Messiah is for them only, not for us, a Messiah ho will give them mastery over the Christians. – 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 longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us – Voltaire

The malevolence of men revealed itself to his mind in all of its ugliness. – Voltaire

The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic. – Voltaire

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

The man who says to me, “Believe as I do, or God will damn you,” will presently say, “Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you.” – Voltaire

The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week. – Voltaire

The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else’s eyes. – Voltaire

The monster, fanaticism, still exists, and whoever seeks after truth will run the risk of being persecuted. – Voltaire

The more a man knows, the less he talks. – Voltaire

The more estimable the offender, the greater the torment. – Voltaire

The more he became truly wise, the more he distrusted everything he knew. – Voltaire

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing. – Voltaire

The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom. – Voltaire

The more you know, the less sure you are. – Voltaire

The most amazing and effective inventions are not those which do most honour to the human genius. – Voltaire

The most beautiful of all emblems is that of God, whom Timaeus of Locris describes under the image of “A circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” – Voltaire

The most genuine and efficacious charity is that which greases the paws of the priests; such charity covers a multitude of sins. – Voltaire

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood. – Voltaire

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs. – Voltaire

The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great that every thing must soon be reduced to extracts and dictionaries. – Voltaire

The multitude of books is making us ignorant. – Voltaire

The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous. – Voltaire

The only reward to be expected from literature is contempt if one fails and hatred if one succeeds. – Voltaire

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it. – Voltaire

The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity. – Voltaire

The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted. – Voltaire

The opinion of all lawyers, the unanimous cry of the nation, and the good of the state, are in themselves a law. – Voltaire

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

The passions are the winds which fill the sails of the vessel; they sink it at times, but without them it would be impossible to make way. – Voltaire

The policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a state equal to that of animals, whom nature has furnished with food, clothing, and shelter. – Voltaire

The Pope is an idol whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed. – Voltaire

The Pride of every Jew finds cause to believe that the cause of their down fall is not their detestable politics, or ignorance of social graces, but the raft of God. They believe it took a miracle to undo them. – Voltaire

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

The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men. – Voltaire

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

The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing. – Voltaire

The punishment of criminals should serve a purpose. When a man is hanged he is useless. – Voltaire

The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person. – Voltaire

The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy. – Voltaire

The question of good and evil remains in irremediable chaos for those who seek to fathom it in reality. It is mere mental sport to the disputants, who are captives that play with their chains. – Voltaire

The right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature; like an inheritance, it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage. – Voltaire

The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech. – Voltaire

The road to the heart is the ear. – Voltaire

The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demigod. – 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 secret of being tiresome is in telling everything. – Voltaire

The secret of boring people lies in telling them everything. – Voltaire

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion. – Voltaire

The son of God is the same as the son of man; the son of man is the same as the son of God. God, the father, is the same as Christ, the son; Christ, the son, is the same as God, the father. This language may appear confused to unbelievers, but Christians will readily understand it. – Voltaire

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

The spirit of property doubles a man’s strength. – Voltaire

The superfluous is the most necessary. – Voltaire

The superfluous, a very necessary thing. – Voltaire

The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant. – Voltaire

The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs. – Voltaire

The system of Descartes… seemed to give a plausible reason for all those phenomena; and this reason seemed more just, as it is simple and intelligible to all capacities. But in philosophy, a student ought to doubt of the things he fancies he understands too easily, as much as of those he does not understand. – Voltaire

The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force. – 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 tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor. – Voltaire

The way to be a bore is to say everything. – Voltaire

The way to become boring is to say everything. – Voltaire

The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends. – Voltaire

the women are never at a loss, God provides for them, let us run. – Voltaire

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

The worthy administrators of justice are like a cat set to take care of a cheese, lest it should be gnawed by the mice. One bite of the cat does more damage to the cheese than twenty mice can do. – Voltaire

Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances. It is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind. – Voltaire

theology is to religion what poisons are to food. – Voltaire

There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so prodigiously surpasses man in friendship, and nail him down to a table, and dissect him alive to show you the mezaraic veins… Answer me, Machinist, has Nature really arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may be incapable of suffering? – Voltaire

There are men who can think no deeper than a fact. – Voltaire

There are no sects in geometry. – Voltaire

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

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

There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them. – Voltaire

There can be no happiness without good health. – Voltaire

There is a pleasure in not being pleased. – Voltaire

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

There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics… We repeat, there was far more imagination in the head of Archimedes than in that of Homer. – Voltaire

There is no such thing as an accident. What we call by that name is the effect of some cause which we do not see. – Voltaire

There is only one morality, as there is only one geometry. – Voltaire

There’s scarce a point whereon mankind agree – So well as in their boast of killing me; I boast of nothing, but when I’ve a mind – I think I can be even with mankind. – Voltaire

They are mad men (Jews), but you should not burn them for that. – Voltaire

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

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. – Voltaire

This is no time to be making new enemies. – Voltaire

This is no time to make new enemies. – Voltaire

This poem will never reach its destination. – Voltaire, On Rousseau’s Ode To Posterity

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

Those who are absent, by its means become present; it [mail] is the consolation of life. – Voltaire

Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities. – Voltaire

Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities. – Voltaire

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

Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world. – Voltaire

Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers. – Voltaire

Time is man’s most precious asset. All men neglect it; all regret the loss of it; nothing can be done without it. – Voltaire

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

To a toad what is beauty? A female with two lovely pop-eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly, and green spotted back. – Voltaire

To achieve a goal, a dream, a wish, you must plan it out for success! – Voltaire

To announce truths is an infallible receipt for being persecuted. – Voltaire

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it. – Voltaire

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

To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart. – Voltaire

To enjoy life we must touch much of it lightly. – Voltaire

To hold a pen is to be at war. – Voltaire

To make a vow for life is to make oneself a slave. – Voltaire

To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature. – Voltaire

To really enjoy pleasures, you must know how to leave them. – Voltaire

To succeed in chaining the multitude, you must seem to wear the same fetters. – 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

Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties. – Voltaire

True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others. – Voltaire

True power and true politeness are above vanity. – Voltaire

Truth is a fruit that can only be picked when it is very ripe. – Voltaire

Truth is a fruit which should not be plucked until it is ripe. – Voltaire

Twenty-volume folios will never make a revolution. It’s the little pocket pamphlets that are to be feared. – 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

Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read. – 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

Villains are undone by what is worst in them, heroes by what is best. – Voltaire

Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce must not be reckoned. – Voltaire

Virtue debases itself in justifying itself. – Voltaire

Virtuous men alone possess friends. – Voltaire

War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not color his crime with the pretext of justice. – Voltaire

We admit, in geometry, not only infinite magnitudes, that is to say, magnitudes greater than any assignable magnitude, but infinite magnitudes infinitely greater, the one than the other. This astonishes our dimension of brains, which is only about six inches long, five broad, and six in depth, in the largest heads. – Voltaire

We adore, we invoke, we seek to appease, only that which we fear. – Voltaire

We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one. – 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 all guilty of the good we did not do. – Voltaire

We are astonished at thought, but sensation is equally wonderful. – Voltaire

We are going to a new world… and no doubt it is there that everything is for the best; for it must be admitted that one might lament a little over the physical and moral happenings of our own world. – Voltaire

We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton’s intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence. – Voltaire

We are obliged to place ourselves on the level of our age before we can rise above it. – 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 have our arts, the ancients had theirs… We cannot raise obelisks a hundred feet high in a single piece, but our meridians are more exact. – Voltaire

We know that all the arts are brothers, that each of them illuminates another, and that a universal light results. – Voltaire

We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation. – 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, but we are always in the expectation of living. – Voltaire

We offer up prayers to God only because we have made Him after our own image. We treat Him like a Pasha, or a Sultan, who is capable of being exasperated and appeased. – Voltaire

We only half live when we only half think. – Voltaire

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

Weakness on both sides is, the motto of all quarrels. – Voltaire

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know. – Voltaire

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

What a pessimist you are!” exclaimed Candide. “That is because I know what life is,” said Martin. – Voltaire

What can I hope when all is right? – Voltaire

What can we say with certainty? – Voltaire

What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he’s certain he’ll go to heaven if he cuts your throat? – Voltaire

What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideas of pleasure; for he who has but a moment of pleasure is not a happy man, in like manner that a moment of grief constitutes not a miserable one. – Voltaire

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. – Voltaire

What is history? The lie that everyone agrees on… – Voltaire

What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them. – Voltaire

What is not in nature can never be true. – 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 is toleration? It is the prerogative of humanity. We are all steeped in weaknesses and errors: Let us forgive one another’s follies, it 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

What will the preachers say? … to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike. – Voltaire

What would constitute useful history? That which should teach us our duties and our rights, without appearing to teach them. – Voltaire

What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them? – Voltaire

Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you. – Voltaire

Whatever you do, crush the infamy. – Voltaire

Whatever you do, trample down abuses, and love those who love you. Different translation: Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing superstition, and love those who love you. – Voltaire

When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself. – Voltaire

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

When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy. – Voltaire

When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not? – Voltaire

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

When one man speaks to another man who doesn’t understand him, and when a man who’s speaking no longer understands, it’s metaphysics. – Voltaire

When truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to rise. There never has been a dispute as to whether there is daylight at noon. – Voltaire

When we cannot use the compass of mathematics or the torch of experience…it is certain we cannot take a single step forward. – Voltaire

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

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. Tecumseh Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. – Voltaire

Whenever an important event, a revolution, or a calamity turns to the profit of the church, such is always signalised as the Finger of God. – Voltaire

Where some states possess an army, the Prussian Army possesses a state. – Voltaire

Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil. – Voltaire

Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am. – Voltaire

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

Which is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more deadly; for atheism inspires no bloody passion whereas fanaticism does; atheism is opposed to crime and fanaticism causes crimes to be committed. – Voltaire

Who are you, Nature? I live in you; for fifty years I have been seeking you, and I have not found you yet. – Voltaire

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

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors. – Voltaire

Whosoever does not know how to recognize the faults of great men is incapable of estimating their perfections. – Voltaire

Why are the Jews hated? It is the inevitable result of their laws; they either have to conquer everybody or be hated by the whole human race… – Voltaire

Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them? – Voltaire

Will is wish, and liberty is power. – Voltaire

Wine is the divine juice of September. – 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

Work banishes those three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty. – Voltaire

Work is often the father of pleasure. – Voltaire

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

Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need. – Voltaire

Writing is the painting of the voice. – Voltaire

You (Pindar) who possessed the talent of speaking much without saying anything. – Voltaire

You are very harsh.’ ‘I have seen the world. – Voltaire

You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it. – Voltaire

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. – Voltaire

You have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you. – Voltaire

You must have the devil in you to succeed in any of the arts. – Voltaire

You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts. – Voltaire

You see many stars at night in the sky but find them not when the sun rises; can you say that there are no stars in the heaven of day? So, O man! because you behold not God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God. – Voltaire

You see, Mademoiselle, I have experience, I know the world. To pass the time, why don’t you ask every passenger to tell you his life’s story? And if there is a single one among them who has never cursed his life, who has not often told himself that he was the unhappiest of men, then you may throw me overboard, headfirst! – Voltaire

You will notice that in all disputes between Christians since the birth of the Church, Rome has always favored the doctrine which most completely subjugated the human mind and annihilated reason. – Voltaire

You write your name in the snow Yet say nothing. – Voltaire

You’re a bitter man,” said Candide. That’s because I’ve lived,” said Martin. – Voltaire

Your destiny is that of a man, and your vows those of a god. – Voltaire

Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille from 16 May 1717 to 15 April 1718 in a windowless cell with ten-foot-thick walls.

Voltaire was imprisoned in the Bastille from 16 May 1717 to 15 April 1718 in a windowless cell with ten-foot-thick walls.

Voltaire Quotes From Wikiquote

  • La vertu s’avilit à se justifier.
    • Virtue is debased by self-justification.
      • Oedipe, act II, scene IV (1718)
  • On doit des égards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la vérité.
    • We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth.
      • Letter to M. de Grenonville (1719)
  • C’est un poids bien pesant qu’un nom trop tôt fameux.
    • Quite a heavy weight, a name too quickly famous.
      • La Henriade, chant troisième, l.41 (1722)
  • L’homme est libre au moment qu’il veut l’être.
    • Man is free at the instant he wants to be.
      • Source Brutus, act II, scene I (1730)
  • Les mortels sont égaux; ce n’est pas la naissance,
    C’est la seule vertu qui fait la différence.

    • All mortals are equal; it is not their birth,
      But virtue itself that makes the difference.
    • Ériphyle Act II, scene I (1732); these lines were also later used in Voltaire’s Mahomet, Act I, scene IV (1741)
    • Variant translations:
    • Men are equal; it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes them differ.
      • As quoted in Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (1866) edited by Craufurd Tait Ramage, p. 363
    • Men are equal; it is not birth
      But virtue that makes the difference
  • On parle toujours mal quand on n’a rien à dire.
    • One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.
      • “Commentaires sur Corneille,” Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire (1827)
  • Les anciens Romains élevaient des prodiges d’architecture pour faire combattre des bêtes.
    • The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture for wild beasts to fight in.
      • Letter addressed to “un premier commis” [name unknown] (20 June 1733), from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance [Garnier frères, Paris, 1880], vol. I, letter # 343 (p. 354)
  • Ainsi, presque tout est imitation. L’idée des Lettres persanes est prise de celle de l’Espion turc. Le Boiardo a imité le Pulci, l’Arioste a imité le Boiardo. Les esprits les plus originaux empruntent les uns des autres. Michel Cervantes fait un fou de son don Quichotte; mais Roland est-il autre chose qu’un fou? Il serait difficile de décider si la chevalerie errante est plus tournée en ridicule par les peintures grotesques de Cervantes que par la féconde imagination de l’Arioste. Métastase a pris la plupart de ses opéras dans nos tragédies françaises. Plusieurs auteurs anglais nous ont copiés, et n’en ont rien dit. Il en est des livres comme du feu de nos foyers; on va prendre ce feu chez son voisin, on l’allume chez soi, on le communique à d’autres, et il appartient à tous.
    • Thus, almost everything is imitation. The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original minds borrowed from one another. Miguel de Cervantes makes his Don Quixote a fool; but pray is Orlando any other? It would puzzle one to decide whether knight errantry has been made more ridiculous by the grotesque painting of Cervantes, than by the luxuriant imagination of Ariosto. Metastasio has taken the greatest part of his operas from our French tragedies. Several English writers have copied us without saying one word of the matter. It is with books as with the fire in our hearths; we go to a neighbor to get the embers and light it when we return home, pass it on to others, and it belongs to everyone
      • “Lettre XII: sur M. Pope et quelques autres poètes fameux,” Lettres philosophiques (1756 edition)
      • Variants:
    • He looked on everything as imitation. The most original writers, he said, borrowed one from another. Boyardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariofio Boyardo. The instruction we find in books is like fire; we fetch it from our neighbour, kindle it as home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
      • Historical and Critical Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. de Voltaire (1786) by Louis Mayeul Chaudon, p. 348
    • What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
      • As translated in Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists (2008), by James Geary, p. 373
  • Où est l’amitié est la patrie.
    • Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.
      • Letter to Nicolas-Claude Thieriot (1734)
  • Tous les genres sont bons, hors le genre ennuyeux.
    • All styles are good except the boring kind.
      • L’Enfant prodigue: comédie en vers dissillabes (1736), Preface
  • Le superflu, chose très nécessaire.
    • The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
    • Variant translation: The superfluous is very necessary.
      • Poem Le Mondain (1736)
  • Le paradis terrestre est où je suis.
    • Paradise on earth is where I am.
      • Le Mondain (1736)
  • Tout homme sensé, tout homme de bien, doit avoir la secte chrétienne en horreur.
    • Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.
      • Examen important de milord Bolingbroke (1736): Conclusion
  • Aime la vérité, mais pardonne à l’erreur.
    • Love truth, but pardon error.
      • “Deuxième discours: de la liberté,” Sept Discours en Vers sur l’Homme (1738)
  • Usez, n’abusez point; le sage ainsi l’ordonne.
    Je fuis également Épictète et Pétrone.
    L’abstinence ou l’excès ne fit jamais d’heureux.

    • Use, do not abuse; as the wise man commands. I flee Epictetus and Petronius alike. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
      • “Cinquième discours: sur la nature de plaisir,” Sept Discours en Vers sur l’Homme (1738)
  • Le secret d’ennuyer est celui de tout dire.
    • The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
      • “Sixième discours: sur la nature de l’homme,” Sept Discours en Vers sur l’Homme (1738)
  • Une seule partie de la physique occupe la vie de plusieurs hommes, et les laisse souvent mourir dans l’incertitude.
    • A single part of physics occupies the lives of many men, and often leaves them dying in uncertainty.
      • “A Madame la Marquise du Châtelet, Avant-Propos,” Eléments de Philosophie de Newton (1738)
  • Ne peut-on pas remonter jusqu’à ces anciens scélérats, fondateurs illustres de la superstition et du fanatisme, qui, les premiers, ont pris le couteau sur l’autel pour faire des victimes de ceux qui refusaient d’etre leurs disciples?
    • May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?
      • Letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105; as translated by Richard Aldington
  • Mais qu’un marchand de chameaux excite une sédition dans sa bourgade; qu’associé à quelques malheureux coracites il leur persuade qu’il s’entretient avec l’ange Gabriel; qu’il se vante d’avoir été ravi au ciel, et d’y avoir reçu une partie de ce livre inintelligible qui fait frémir le sens commun à chaque page; que, pour faire respecter ce livre, il porte dans sa patrie le fer et la flamme; qu’il égorge les pères, qu’il ravisse les filles, qu’il donne aux vaincus le choix de sa religion ou de la mort, c’est assurément ce que nul homme ne peut excuser, à moins qu’il ne soit né Turc, et que la superstition n’étouffe en lui toute lumière naturelle.
    • But that a camel-merchant should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel Gabriel; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse, at least if he was not born a Turk, or if superstition has not extinguished all natural light in him.
      • Referring to Muhammad, in a letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105
  • Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heureux:
    Qui sert bien son pays n’a pas besoin d’aïeux.

    • The first who was king was a fortunate soldier:
      Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

      • Mérope, act I, scene III (1743). Borrowed from Lefranc de Pompignan’s “Didon”
  • Les habiles tyrans ne sont jamais punis.
    • Clever tyrants are never punished.
      • Mérope, act V, scene V (1743)
  • Il vaut mieux hasarder de sauver un coupable que de condamner un innocent.
    • It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
      • Zadig (1747)
  • Qui plume a, guerre a.
    • To hold a pen is to be at war.
      • Letter to Jeanne-Grâce Bosc du Bouchet, comtesse d’Argental (4 October 1748)
      • This remark also appears in a letter to Marie-Louise Denis (22 May 1752): To hold a pen is to be at war. This world is one vast temple consecrated to discord [Qui plume a, guerre a. Ce monde est un vaste temple dédié à la discorde].
  • C’est une des superstitions de l’esprit humain d’avoir imaginé que la virginité pouvait être une vertu.
    • It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.
      • Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
      • Note: This quotation and the three that follow directly below are from the so-called Leningrad Notebook, also known as Le Sottisier; it is one of several posthumously published notebooks of Voltaire.
  • Prier Dieu c’est se flatter qu’avec des paroles on changera toute la nature.
    • To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.
      • Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
  • Nous cherchons tous le bonheur, mais sans savoir où, comme les ivrognes qui cherchent leur maison, sachant confusément qu’ils en ont une.
    • We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.
      • Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
      • A variation on this remark can be found in the same notebook: Men who look for happiness are like drunkards who cannot find their house but know that they have one [Les hommes qui cherchent le bonheur sont comme des ivrognes qui ne peuvent trouver leur maison, mais qui savent qu’ils en ont une].
  • Si Dieu nous a faits à son image, nous le lui avons bien rendu.
    • If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.
      • Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
  • Il est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort.
    • It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
      • “Catalogue pour la plupart des écrivains français qui ont paru dans Le Siècle de Louis XIV, pour servir à l’histoire littéraire de ce temps,” Le Siècle de Louis XIV (1752)
      • Note: The most frequently attributed variant of this quote is: It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  • Un ministre est excusable du mal qu’il fait, lorsque le gouvernail de l’État est forcé dans sa main par les tempêtes; mais dans le calme il est coupable de tout le bien qu’il ne fait pas.
    • A minister of state is excusable for the harm he does when the helm of government has forced his hand in a storm; but in the calm he is guilty of all the good he does not do.
      • Le Siècle de Louis XIV, ch. VI: “État de la France jusqu’à la mort du cardinal Mazarin en 1661” (1752) Unsourced paraphrase or variant translation: Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
  • Elle [la nation juive] ose étaler une haine irréconciliable contre toutes les nations; elle se révolte contre tous ses maîtres. Toujours superstitieuse, toujours avide du bien d’autrui, toujours barbare, rampante dans le malheur, et insolente dans la prospérité.
    • The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters; always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous — cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity.
      • Essai sur les Moeurs et l’Esprit des Nations (1753), Introduction, XLII: Des Juifs depuis Saül [1]
  • Un peuple qui trafique de ses enfants est encore plus condamnable que l’acheteur: ce négoce démontre notre supériorité; ce qui se donne un maître était né pour en avoir.
    • A people that sells its own children is more condemnable than the buyer; this commerce demonstrates our superiority; he who gives himself a master was born to have one.
      • Essai sur les Moeurs et l’Espit des Nations (1753), ch. CXCVII: Résumé de toute cette histoire jusqu’au temps où commence le beau siècle de Louis XIV [2]
  • Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire.
    • This body which called itself and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
      • Essai sur l’histoire générale et sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations, Chapter 70 (1756)
  • En aimant tant la gloire, comment pouvez-vous vous obstiner à un projet qui vous la fera perdre?
    • While loving glory so much how can you persist in a plan which will cause you to lose it?
      • Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano’s, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 130 from Voltaire to Frederick II of Prussia, October 1757. [3]
  • Les opinions ont plus causé de maux sur ce petit globe que la peste et les tremblements de terre.
    • Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.
      • Letter to Élie Bertrand (5 January 1759)
  • Mari qui veut surprendre est souvent fort surpris.[4]
    • Translation: The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.
    • La Femme Qui a Raison, Act 1, scene 2 (1759)
  • Il faut toujours en fait de nouvelles attendre le sacrement de la confirmation.
    • When we hear news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
      • Letter to Charles-Augustin Ferriol, comte d’Argental (28 August 1760]])
  • Quand il s’agit d’argent, tout le monde est de la même religion.
    • When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
      • Letter to Mme. d’Épinal, Ferney (26 December 1760) from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance (Garnier frères, Paris, 1881), vol. IX, letter # 4390 (p. 124)
  • Il y a des vérités qui ne sont pas pour tous les hommes et pour tous les temps.
    • There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
      • Letter to François-Joachim de Pierre, cardinal de Bernis (23 April 1764)
  • Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande.
    • Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.
      • Letter to Louise Dorothea of Meiningen, duchess of Saxe-Gotha Madame (30 January 1762)
  • Quoi que vous fassiez, écrasez l’infâme, et aimez qui vous aime.
    • Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.
      • Letter to Jean le Rond d’Alembert (28 November 1762); This was written in reference to crushing superstition, and the words “écrasez l’infâme” (“Crush the Infamy”) became a motto strongly identified with Voltaire.
  • La superstition est à la religion ce que l’astrologie est à l’astronomie, la fille très folle d’une mère très sage. Ces deux filles ont longtemps subjugué toute la terre.
    • Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
      • “Whether it is useful to maintain the people in superstition,” Treatise on Toleration (1763)
  • Ils ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices, et n’emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées.
    • Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
      • Dialogue xivLe Chapon et la Poularde (l763); reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
  • Mais, monsieur, en étant persuadés par la foi, des choses qui paraissent absurdes à notre intelligence, c’est-à-dire, en croyant ce que nous ne croyons pas, gardons-nous de faire ce sacrifice de notre raison dans la conduite de la vie. Il y a eu des gens qui ont dit autrefois: Vous croyez des choses incompréhensibles, contradictoires, impossibles, parce que nous vous l’avons ordonné; faites donc des choses injustes parce que nous vous l’ordonnons. Ces gens-là raisonnaient à merveille. Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde est en droit de vous rendre injuste. Si vous n’opposez point aux ordres de croire l’impossible l’intelligence que Dieu a mise dans votre esprit, vous ne devez point opposer aux ordres de malfaire la justice que Dieu a mise dans votre coeur. Une faculté de votre âme étant une fois tyrannisée, toutes les autres facultés doivent l’être également. Et c’est là ce qui a produit tous les crimes religieux dont la terre a été inondée.
    • Once your faith, sir, persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares to be absurd, beware lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life. In days gone by, there were people who said to us: “You believe in incomprehensible, contradictory and impossible things because we have commanded you to; now then, commit unjust acts because we likewise order you to do so.” Nothing could be more convincing. Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. If you do not use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist believing impossibilities, you will not be able to use the sense of injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do evil. Once a single faculty of your soul has been tyrannized, all the other faculties will submit to the same fate. This has been the cause of all the religious crimes that have flooded the earth. (Translation from Norman Lewis Torrey: Les Philosophes. The Philosophers of the Enlightenment and Modern Democracy. Capricorn Books, 1961, pp. 277-8)
      • Questions sur les miracles (1765)
      • Widely used paraphrase: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities”.
  • La nôtre [religion] est sans contredit la plus ridicule, la plus absurde, et la plus sanguinaire qui ait jamais infecté le monde.Votre Majesté rendra un service éternel au genre humain en détruisant cette infâme superstition, je ne dis pas chez la canaille, qui n’est pas digne d’être éclairée, et à laquelle tous les jougs sont propres; je dis chez les honnêtes gens, chez les hommes qui pensent, chez ceux qui veulent penser… Je ne m’afflige de toucher à la mort que par mon profond regret de ne vous pas seconder dans cette noble entreprise, la plus belle et la plus respectable qui puisse signaler l’esprit humain.
    • Ours is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world.Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. … My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out.
      • Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano’s, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 156 from Voltaire to Frederick II of Prussia, 5 January 1767 [5]
      • Often misquoted as “Christianity is…“, while in the context, Voltaire was referring specifically to Catholicism.
  • Le doute n’est pas un état bien agréable, mais l’assurance est un état ridicule.
    Ce qui révolte le plus dans le Système de la nature ( après la façon de faire des anguilles avec de la farine), c’est l’audace avec laquelle il décide qu’il n’y a point de Dieu , sans avoir seulement tenté d’en prouver l’impossibilité.

    • Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature [of d’Holbach] — after the recipe for making eels from flour — is the audacity with which it decides that there is no God, without even having tried to prove the impossibility.
      • Letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia (28 November 1770). English: in S.G. Tallentyre (ed.), Voltaire in His Letters. New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919. p. 232. French: Au prince royal de prusse, le 28 novembre, in M. Palissot (ed.), Oeuvres de Voltaire: Lettres Choisies du Roi de Prusse et de M. de Voltaire, Tome II. Paris : Chez Baudoiun, 1802. p. 419
  • It is very strange that men should deny a creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels.
    • From the Philosophic Dictionary, as quoted in The life of Pasteur (1902)
  • Où est le prince assez instruit pour savoir que depuis dix-sept cents ans la secte chrétienne n’a jamais fait que du mal?
    • Where is the prince sufficiently educated to know that for seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm?
      • Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano’s, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 160 from Voltaire to Frederick II of Prussia, 6 April 1767 [6]
  • “A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity”
    • The critical review, or annals of literature, Volume XXVI, by A Society of Gentlemen (1768) p. 450
  • Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees.
    • The critical review, or annals of literature, Volume XXVI, by A Society of Gentlemen (1768) p. 450
  • J’ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte. La voici: Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules! Dieu m’a exaucé.
    • I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: “O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!” God granted it.
      • Letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville (16 May 1767)
  • En effet, l’histoire n’est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs.
    • Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
      • L’Ingénu, ch.10 (1767)
      • Quoted in The End, part 13 of A Series of Unfortunate Events
  • Un bon mot ne prouve rien.
    • A witty saying proves nothing.
      • Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767): Deuxième Entretien
  • Il est bien malaisé (puisqu’il faut enfin m’expliquer) d’ôter à des insensés des chaînes qu’ils révèrent.
    • It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
      • Le dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers (1767): Troisième Entretien
  • La vie est hérissée de ces épines, et je n’y sais d’autre remède que de cultiver son jardin.
    • Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.
      • Letter to Pierre-Joseph Luneau de Boisjermain (21 October 1769), from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance [Garnier frères, Paris, 1882], vol. XIV, letter # 7692 (p. 478)
  • C’est une grande question parmi eux s’ils [les africains] sont descendus des singes ou si les singes sont venus d’eux. Nos sages ont dit que l’homme est l’image de Dieu: voilà une plaisante image de l’Être éternel qu’un nez noir épaté, avec peu ou point d’intelligence! Un temps viendra, sans doute, où ces animaux sauront bien cultiver la terre, l’embellir par des maisons et par des jardins, et connaître la route des astres il faut du temps pour tout.
    • It is a serious question among them whether they [Africans] are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything.
      • Les Lettres d’Amabed (1769): Septième Lettre d’Amabed [7]
  • On dit que Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons.
    • It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.
      • Letter to François-Louis-Henri Leriche (6 February 1770)
      • Note: In his Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750), Voltaire wrote: God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
  • C’est une plaisante chose que la pensée dépende absolument de l’estomac, et malgré cela les meilleurs estomacs ne soient pas les meilleurs penseurs.
    • Thought depends largely on the stomach. In spite of this, those with the best stomachs are not always the best thinkers.
      • Letter to Jean le Rond d’Alembert (20 August 1770)
  • Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.
    • If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
    • Variant translation: If there was no God, It would be necessary to invent him.
      • Épître à l’Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs (10 November 1770)
      • For the background of the quote see this source: Yeh, Anthony (July 3, 2011). “What did Voltaire mean when he said that “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him”?”. Quora. Archived from the original on October 27, 2017. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
  • “Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.” Mais toute la nature nous crie qu’il existe; qu’il y a une intelligence suprême, un pouvoir immense, un ordre admirable, et tout nous instruit de notre dépendance.
    • “If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.” But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.
      • Voltaire quoting himself in his Letter to Prince Frederick William of Prussia (28 November 1770), translated by S.G. Tallentyre, Voltaire in His Letters (1919)
  • Tous les autres peuples ont commis des crimes, les Juifs sont les seuls qui s’en soient vantés. Ils sont tous nés avec la rage du fanatisme dans le cœur, comme les Bretons et les Germains naissent avec des cheveux blonds. Je ne serais point étonné que cette nation ne fût un jour funeste au genre humain.
    • All of the other people have committed crimes, the Jews are the only ones who have boasted about committing them. They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race.
      • Lettres de Memmius a Cicéron (1771)
  • Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.
    • The best is the enemy of the good.
      • “La Bégueule” (Contes, 1772)
      • Variant translations:The perfect is the enemy of the good.
        The better is the enemy of the good.
      • Note: translation of earlier traditional Italian Il meglio è nemico del bene, attested since 1603: Proverbi italiani (Italian Proverbs), by Orlando Pescetti (c. 1556 – c. 1624) (p. 30, p. 45)
      • Note: Voltaire cites this saying in his poem “La Bégueule” (“The prude woman”) while ascribing it to an unnamed “Italian sage”; he also gives the saying (without attribution) in Italian (Il meglio è l’inimico del bene [note spelling difference: l’inimico instead of nemico for “[the] enemy”) in the article “Art Dramatique” (“Dramatic Art”, 1770) in the Dictionnaire philosophique
  • J’aime fort la vérité, mais je n’aime point du tout le martyre.
    • I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.
      • Letter to Jean le Rond d’Alembert (8 February 1776)
  • Je meurs en adorant Dieu, en aimant mes amis, en ne haïssant pas mes ennemis et en détestant la superstition.
    • I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.
      • Déclaration de Voltaire, note to his secretary, Jean-Louis Wagnière (28 February 1778)
  • Que les supplices des criminels soient utiles. Un homme pendu n’est bon à rien, et un homme condamné aux ouvrages publics sert encore la patrie, et est une leçon vivante.
    • 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.
      • “Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws,” Dictionnaire philosophique (1785-1789)
      • Note: The Dictionnaire philosophique was a posthumously published collection of articles combining the Dictionnaire philosophique portatif (published under various editions and titles from 1764 to 1777), the Questions sur l’Encyclopédie (published from 1770 to 1774), articles written for the Encyclopédie and the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, the manuscript known as l’Opinion sur l’alphabet and a number of previously published miscellaneous articles.
  • Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde.
    • Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.
      • “Liberty of the Press,” Dictionnaire philosophique (1785-1789)
  • Toutes les sectes des philosophes ont échoué contre l’écueil du mal physique et moral. Il ne reste que d’avouer que Dieu ayant agi pour le mieux n’a pu agir mieux.
    • All philosophical sects have run aground on the reef of moral and physical ill. It only remains for us to confess that God, having acted for the best, had not been able to do better.
      • “Power, Omnipotence,” Dictionnaire philosophique (1785-1789)
  • L’homme doit être content, dit-on; mais de quoi?
    • Man ought to be content, it is said; but with what?
    • Pensées, Remarques, et Observations de Voltaire; ouvrage posthume (1802)
      • Note: This is from a volume of posthumously published “Thoughts, remarks and observations” believed to be by Voltaire. [8]
  • La superstition met le monde entier en flammes; la philosophie les éteint.
    • Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.
      • Dictionnaire philosophique (1822), “Superstition”
  • Le public est une bête féroce: il faut l’enchaîner ou la fuir.
    • The public is a ferocious beast: one must chain it up or flee from it.
      • Letter to Mademoiselle Quinault, quoted in Charles Sainte-Beuve, “Lettres inédites de Voltaire,” Causeries de Lundi (20 October 1856) [9]; an English translation can be found on this page: [10]
  • The king [Frederic] has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time.
    • Reply to General Manstein. Voltaire writes to his niece Dennis, July 24, 1752, “Voilà le roi qui m’envoie son linge à blanchir”; reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
  • Toutes les histoires anciennes, comme le disait un de nos beaux esprits, ne sont que des fables convenues.
    • Ancient histories, as one of our wits has said, are but fables that have been agreed upon.
      • Jeannot et Colin (1764)
  • L’amour est de toutes les passions la plus forte, parce qu’elle attaque à la fois la tête, le cœur et le corps.
    • Love is of all the passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the body.
      • Le Dernier Volume Des Œuvres De Voltaire: Contes – Comédie – Pensées – Poésies – Lettres (1862)
  • “I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. It does not behoove us, who were only savages and barbarians when these Indians and Chinese peoples were civilized and learned, to dispute their antiquity.”
    • Voltaire, quoted in Sanskrit Reader 1: A Reader in Sanskrit Literature by Heiko Kretschmer

Candide (1759)

  • If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?
  • Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any experienced in a town when it is under siege.
  • Our labour preserves us from three great evils — weariness, vice, and want.
  • In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.
  • “Let us work without reasoning,” said Martin; “it is the only way to make life endurable.”
  • Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.
  • Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.
  • “Optimism,” said Cacambo, “What is that?” “Alas!” replied Candide, “It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst!
  • “You’re a bitter man,” said Candide. “That’s because I’ve lived,” said Martin.
  • Let us cultivate our garden.

The History of the Quakers (1762)

  • Being of opinion that the doctrine and history of so extraordinary a sect as the Quakers were very well deserving the curiosity of every thinking man, I resolved to make myself acquainted with them, and for that purpose made a visit to one of the most eminent of that sect in England, who, after having been in trade for thirty years, had the wisdom to prescribe limits to his fortune, and to his desires, and withdrew to a small but pleasant retirement in the country, not many miles from London. Here it was that I made him my visit. His house was small, but neatly built, and with no other ornaments but those of decency and convenience.
  • He advanced toward me without moving his hat, or making the least inclination of his body; but there appeared more real politeness in the open, humane air of his countenance, than in drawing one leg behind the other, and carrying that in the hand which is made to be worn on the head. “Friend,” said he, “I perceive thou art a stranger, if I can do thee any service thou hast only to let me know it.” “Sir,” I replied, bowing my body, and sliding one leg toward him, as is the custom with us, “I flatter myself that my curiosity, which you will allow to be just, will not give you any offence, and that you will do me the honor to inform me of the particulars of your religion.” “The people of thy country,” answered the Quaker, “are too full of their bows and their compliments; but I never yet met with one of them who had so much curiosity as thyself. Come in and let us dine first together.”
    • Voltaire’s account of meeting the Quaker Andrew Pit
  • I opened with that which good Catholics have more than once made to Huguenots. “My dear sir,” said I, “were you ever baptized?” “No, friend,” replied the Quaker, “nor any of my brethren.” “Zounds!” said I to him, “you are not Christians then!” “Friend,” replied the old man, in a soft tone of voice, “do not swear; we are Christians, but we do not think that sprinkling a few drops of water on a child’s head makes him a Christian.” “My God!” exclaimed I, shocked at his impiety, “have you then forgotten that Christ was baptized by St. John?” “Friend,” replied the mild Quaker, “once again, do not swear. Christ was baptized by John, but He Himself never baptized any one; now we profess ourselves disciples of Christ, and not of John.” “Mercy on us,” cried I, “what a fine subject you would be for the holy inquisitor! In the name of God, my good old man, let me baptize you.”
    • Voltaire’s account of his conversations with Andrew Pit
  • I asked my guide how it was possible the judicious part of them could suffer such incoherent prating? “We are obliged,” said he, “to suffer it, because no one knows, when a brother rises up to hold forth, whether he will be moved by the spirit or by folly. In this uncertainty, we listen patiently to every one. We even allow our women to speak in public; two or three of them are often inspired at the same time, and then a most charming noise is heard in the Lord’s house.” “You have no priests, then?” said I. “No, no, friend,” replied the Quaker; “heaven make us thankful!” Then opening one of the books of their sect, he read the following words in an emphatic tone: “‘God forbid we should presume to ordain any one to receive the Holy Spirit on the Lord’s day, in exclusion to the rest of the faithful!’
    • Further account of his conversations with Andrew Pit
  • You have already heard that the Quakers date their epoch from Christ, who, according to them, was the first Quaker. Religion, say they, was corrupted almost immediately after His death, and remained in that state of corruption about sixteen hundred years. But there were always a few of the faithful concealed in the world, who carefully preserved the sacred fire, which was extinguished in all but themselves; till at length this light shone out in England in 1642.
    It was at the time when Great Britain was distracted by intestine wars, which three or four sects had raised in the name of God, that one George Fox, a native of Leicestershire, and son of a silk-weaver, took it into his head to preach the Word, and, as he pretended, with all the requisites of a true apostle; that is, without being able either to read or write. He was a young man, about twenty-five years of age, of irreproachable manners, and religiously mad. He was clad in leather from head to foot, and travelled from one village to another, exclaiming against the war and the clergy.
  • This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. “Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints.” This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man’s predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold.
    The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for “theeing” and “thouing” the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws.
    At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his “Apology for the Quakers”; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. “Thou hast tasted,” says he to the king, at the close of his “Epistle Dedicatory,” “of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay.”
    The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.
  • William Penn, when only fifteen years of age, chanced to meet a Quaker in Oxford, where he was then following his studies. This Quaker made a proselyte of him; and our young man, being naturally sprightly and eloquent, having a very winning aspect and engaging carriage, soon gained over some of his companions and intimates, and in a short time formed a society of young Quakers, who met at his house; so that at the age of sixteen he found himself at the head of a sect. Having left college, at his return home to the vice-admiral, his father, instead of kneeling to ask his blessing, as is the custom with the English, he went up to him with his hat on, and accosted him thus: “Friend, I am glad to see thee in good health.” The viceadmiral thought his son crazy; but soon discovered he was a Quaker. He then employed every method that prudence could suggest to engage him to behave and act like other people. The youth answered his father only with repeated exhortations to turn Quaker also. After much altercation, his father confined himself to this single request, that he would wait on the king and the duke of York with his hat under his arm, and that he would not “thee” and “thou” them. William answered that his conscience would not permit him to do these things. This exasperated his father to such a degree that he turned him out of doors. Young Penn gave God thanks that he permitted him to suffer so early in His cause, and went into the city, where he held forth, and made a great number of converts; and being young, handsome, and of a graceful figure, both court and city ladies flocked very devoutly to hear him. The patriarch Fox, hearing of his great reputation, came to London — notwithstanding the length of the journey — purposely to see and converse with him. They both agreed to go upon missions into foreign countries; and accordingly they embarked for Holland, after having left a sufficient number of laborers to take care of the London vineyard.
  • William inherited very large possessions, part of which consisted of crown debts, due to the vice-admiral for sums he had advanced for the sea-service. No moneys were at that time less secure than those owing from the king. Penn was obliged to go, more than once, and “thee” and “thou” Charles and his ministers, to recover the debt; and at last, instead of specie, the government invested him with the right and sovereignty of a province of America, to the south of Maryland. Thus was a Quaker raised to sovereign power.
    He set sail for his new dominions with two ships filled with Quakers, who followed his fortune. The country was then named by them Pennsylvania, from William Penn; and he founded Philadelphia, which is now a very flourishing city. His first care was to make an alliance with his American neighbors; and this is the only treaty between those people and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never infringed. The new sovereign also enacted several wise and wholesome laws for his colony, which have remained invariably the same to this day. The chief is, to ill-treat no person on account of religion, and to consider as brethren all those who believe in one God. He had no sooner settled his government than several American merchants came and peopled this colony. The natives of the country, instead of flying into the woods, cultivated by degrees a friendship with the peaceable Quakers. They loved these new strangers as much as they disliked the other Christians, who had conquered and ravaged America. In a little time these savages, as they are called, delighted with their new neighbors, flocked in crowds to Penn, to offer themselves as his vassals. It was an uncommon thing to behold a sovereign “thee’d” and “thou’d” by his subjects, and addressed by them with their hats on; and no less singular for a government to be without one priest in it; a people without arms, either for offence or preservation; a body of citizens without any distinctions but those of public employments; and for neighbors to live together free from envy or jealousy. In a word, William Penn might, with reason, boast of having brought down upon earth the Golden Age, which in all probability, never had any real existence but in his dominions.

    • Variants:
    • No oaths, no seals, no official mummeries were used; the treaty was ratified on both sides with a yea, yea — the only one, says Voltaire, that the world has known, never sworn to and never broken.
      • As quoted in William Penn : An Historical Biography (1851) by William Hepworth Dixon
    • William Penn began by making a league with the Americans, his neighbors. It is the only one between those natives and the Christians which was never sworn to, and the only one that was never broken.
      • As quoted in American Pioneers (1905), by William Augustus Mowry and Blanche Swett Mowry, p. 80
    • It was the only treaty made by the settlers with the Indians that was never sworn to, and the only one that was never broken.
      • As quoted in A History of the American Peace Movement (2008) by Charles F. Howlett, and ‎Robbie Lieberman, p. 33
  • It was in the reign of Charles II that they obtained the noble distinction of being exempted from giving their testimony on oath in a court of justice, and being believed on their bare affirmation. On this occasion the chancellor, who was a man of wit, spoke to them as follows: “Friends, Jupiter one day ordered that all the beasts of burden should repair to be shod. The asses represented that their laws would not allow them to submit to that operation. ‘Very well,’ said Jupiter; ‘then you shall not be shod; but the first false step you make, you may depend upon being severely drubbed.'”
  • I cannot guess what may be the fate of Quakerism in America; but I perceive it loses ground daily in England. In all countries, where the established religion is of a mild and tolerating nature, it will at length swallow up all the rest.

Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

  • Books, like conversation, rarely give us any precise ideas: nothing is so common as to read and converse unprofitably. We must here repeat what Locke has so strongly urged—Define your terms.
    • “Abuse of Words” (1764)
    • C.f. Locke: “The names of simple ideas are not capable of any definition; the names of all complex ideas are. It has not, that I know, been yet observed by anybody what words are, and what are not, capable of being defined; the want whereof is (as I am apt to think) not seldom the occasion of great wrangling and obscurity in men’s discourses, whilst some demand definitions of terms that cannot be defined; and others think they ought not to rest satisfied in an explication made by a more general word, and its restriction, (or to speak in terms of art, by a genus and difference), when, even after such definition, made according to rule, those who hear it have often no more a clear conception of the meaning of the word than they had before.”
      • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) Book III, chapter 4
  • La morale est la même chez tous les hommes, donc elle vient de Dieu; le culte est différent, donc il est l’ouvrage des hommes.
    • Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.
      • “Atheist” (1764)
  • Tel homme qui dans un excès de mélancolie se tue aujourd’hui aimerait à vivre s’il attendait huit jours.
    • The man, who in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.
      • “Cato” (1764)
  • Ne ressemblons-nous pas presque tous à ce vieux général de quatre-vingt-dix ans, qui, ayant rencontré de jeunes officiers qui faisaient un peu de désordre avec des filles, leur dit tout en colère: “Messieurs, est-ce là l’exemple que je vous donne?”
    • Do not most of us resemble that old general of ninety who, having come upon some young officers debauching some girls, said to them angrily: “Gentlemen, is that the example I give you?”
      • “Character” (1764)
  • On dit quelquefois, le sens commun est fort rare…
    • It is sometimes said, common sense is very rare.
      • Philosophical Dictionary (‘Sens Commun’) (1767).
    • Compare Juvenal, Satires, viii:73:
      • Original Latin: rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa fortuna.
      • Published translation in French (1731): Il est fort rare qu’on conserve le Sens commun dans une si haute fortune.
      • English translation: For rarely are civic sympathies [alternative translation: common sense] to be found in that rank”.
  • Il est triste que souvent, pour être bon patriote, on soit l’ennemi du reste des hommes.
    • It is sad that often, to be a good patriot, one must be the enemy of the rest of mankind.
      • “Country”
  • Sa réputation s’affermira toujours, parce qu’on ne le lit guère.
    • His reputation will go on increasing because scarcely anyone reads him.
      • “Dante” (1765)
  • Tous les hommes seraient donc nécessairement égaux, s’ils étaient sans besoins. La misère attachée à notre espèce subordonne un homme à un autre homme: ce n’est pas l’inégalité qui est un malheur réel, c’est la dépendance.
    • All men would then be necessarily equal, if they were without needs. It is the poverty connected with our species which subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.
      • “Equality” (1764)
  • Telle est donc la condition humaine que souhaiter la grandeur de son pays, c’est souhaiter du mal à ses voisins.
    • Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.
      • “Fatherland” (1764)
  • La foi consiste à croire ce que la raison ne croit pas.
    • Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.
      • “The Flood” (1764)
  • Les hommes vertueux ont seuls des amis.
    • Virtuous men alone possess friends.
      • “Friendship” (1764)
  • Voulez-vous avoir de bonnes lois; brûlez les vôtres, et faites-en de nouvelles.
    • If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.
      • “Laws” (1765)
  • Définissez les termes, vous dis-je, ou jamais nous ne nous entendrons.
    • Define your terms, you will permit me again to say, or we shall never understand one another.
      • “Miracles” (1764)
  • Le préjugé est une opinion sans jugement.
    • Prejudice is an opinion without judgement.
      • “Prejudices” (1764)
  • Qu’est-ce que la tolérance? c’est l’apanage de l’humanité. Nous sommes tous pétris de faiblesses et d’erreurs; pardonnons-nous réciproquement nos sottises, c’est la première loi de la nature.
    • 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.
      • “Tolerance” (1764)
  • Une compagnie de graves tyrans est inaccessible à toutes les séductions.
    • A company of solemn tyrants is impervious to all seductions.
      • “Tyranny” (1764)
  • The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous.
    • “The Ecclesiastical Ministry”
  • What a pity and what a poverty of spirit, to assert that beasts are machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which affect all their operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, &c. […] Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in friendship, they nail him to a table, and dissect him living, to show the mezarian veins. You discover in him all the same organs of sentiment which are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he nerves to be incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature. […] The animal has received those of sentiment, memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts, who has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun.
    • “Beasts”, in A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 2, J. and H. L. Hunt, 1824, p. 9

Questions sur l’Encyclopédie (1770–1774)

  • On en trouve [l’argent] toujours quand il s’agit d’aller faire tuer des hommes sur la frontière: il n’y en a plus quand il faut les sauver.
    • Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so.
      • “Charity” (1770)
  • La vertu suppose la liberté, comme le transport d’un fardeau suppose la force active. Dans la contrainte point de vertu, et sans vertu point de religion. Rends-moi esclave, je n’en serai pas meilleur. Le souverain même n’a aucun droit d’employer la contrainte pour amener les hommes à la religion, qui suppose essentiellement choix et liberté. Ma pensée n’est pas plus soumise à l’autorité que la maladie ou la santé.
    • Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and without virtue there is no religion. Make a slave of me, and I shall be no better for it. Even the sovereign has no right to use coercion to lead men to religion, which by its nature supposes choice and liberty. My thought is no more subject to authority than is sickness or health.
      • “Canon Law: Ecclesiastical Ministry” (1771)
  • Le divorce est probablement de la même date à peu près que le mariage. Je crois pourtant que le mariage est de quelques semaines plus ancien.
    • Divorce is probably of nearly the same age as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
      • “Divorce” (1771)
  • Il faut vingt ans pour mener l’homme de l’état de plante où il est dans le ventre de sa mère, et de l’état de pur animal, qui est le partage de sa première enfance, jusqu’à celui où la maturité de la raison commence à poindre. Il a fallu trente siècles pour connaître un peu sa structure. Il faudrait l’éternité pour connaître quelque chose de son âme. Il ne faut qu’un instant pour le tuer.
    • It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother’s womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.
      • “Man: General Reflection on Man” (1771)
  • En général, l’art du gouvernement consiste à prendre le plus d’argent qu’on peut à une grande partie des citoyens, pour le donner à une autre partie.
    • In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
      • “Money” (1770)
  • Rien n’est si ordinaire que d’imiter ses ennemis, et d’employer leurs armes.
    • Nothing is so common as to imitate one’s enemies, and to use their weapons.
      • “Oracles” (1770)
  • L’Éternel a ses desseins de toute éternité. Si la prière est d’accord avec ses volontés immuables, il est très inutile de lui demander ce qu’il a résolu de faire. Si on le prie de faire le contraire de ce qu’il a résolu, c’est le prier d’être faible, léger, inconstant; c’est croire qu’il soit tel, c’est se moquer de lui. Ou vous lui demandez une chose juste; en ce cas il la doit, et elle se fera sans qu’on l’en prie; c’est même se défier de lui que lui faire instance ou la chose est injuste, et alors on l’outrage. Vous êtes digne ou indigne de la grâce que vous implorez: si digne, il le sait mieux que vous; si indigne, on commet un crime de plus en demandant ce qu’on ne mérite pas.
    En un mot, nous ne faisons des prières à Dieu que parce que nous l’avons fait à notre image. Nous le traitons comme un bacha, comme un sultan qu’on peut irriter ou apaiser.

    • The Eternal has his designs from all eternity. If prayer is in accord with his immutable wishes, it is quite useless to ask of him what he has resolved to do. If one prays to him to do the contrary of what he has resolved, it is praying that he be weak, frivolous, inconstant; it is believing that he is thus, it is to mock him. Either you ask him a just thing, in which case he must do it, the thing being done without your praying to him for it, and so to entreat him is then to distrust him; or the thing is unjust, and then you insult him. You are worthy or unworthy of the grace you implore: if worthy, he knows it better than you; if unworthy, you commit another crime by requesting what is undeserved.
      In a word, we only pray to God because we have made him in our image. We treat him like a pasha, like a sultan whom one may provoke or appease.

      • “Prayers” (1770)
  • Il est défendu de tuer; tout meurtrier est puni, à moins qu’il n’ait tué en grande compagnie, et au son des trompettes.
    • It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
      • “Rights” (1771)

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