Famous Quotes by Voltaire | Best inspirational quotes on life, love, God, Marriage, freedom of speech & Government
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.
― Voltaire
Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.
― Voltaire
Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
― 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
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
― Voltaire
Repose is a good thing, but boredom is its brother.
― Voltaire
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
― Voltaire
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
― Voltaire
The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.
― Voltaire
I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher.
― Voltaire
Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.
― Voltaire, Candide
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid – one must also be polite.
― Voltaire
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
― Voltaire
Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.
― Voltaire
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
― Voltaire
Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.
― Voltaire
Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
― Voltaire
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.
― Voltaire
Common sense is not so common.
― Voltaire
Our labour preserves us from three great evils — weariness, vice, and want.
― Voltaire
Love truth, but pardon error.
― Voltaire
I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.
― Voltaire
Perfect is the enemy of good.
― Voltaire
All is for the best in the best of possible worlds.
― Voltaire
History is the study of the world’s crime.
― Voltaire
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
― Voltaire
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
― Voltaire
I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.
― Voltaire
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
― Voltaire
Minds differ still more than faces.
― Voltaire
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
― Voltaire
Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?
― Voltaire
History never repeats itself. Man always does.
― Voltaire
Men argue. Nature acts.
― Voltaire
My soul is the mirror of the universe, and my body is its frame.
― Voltaire
What is history? The lie that everyone agrees on…
― Voltaire
Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
― Voltaire
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
― 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
The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.
― Voltaire
If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new.
― Voltaire
The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.
― Voltaire
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
― Voltaire
Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.
― Voltaire
Don’t think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money.
― 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
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
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
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
― Voltaire
No opinion is worth burning your neighbor for.
― Voltaire
The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
― Voltaire
Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.
― 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
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
Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.
― Voltaire
It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
― Voltaire
It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.
― Voltaire
In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.
― Voltaire
Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.
― Voltaire
The more a man knows, the less he talks.
― 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
All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
― Voltaire
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
― Voltaire
We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization.
― Voltaire
The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.
― Voltaire
Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.
― 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
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
It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.
― Voltaire
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
― Voltaire
A witty saying proves nothing.
― Voltaire
The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.
― Voltaire
Tears are the silent language of grief.
― Voltaire
Theology is to religion what poisons are to food.
― Voltaire
I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health.
― Voltaire
Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.
― Voltaire
Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them.
― 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
Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.
― Voltaire
No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking.
― Voltaire
If there’s life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe’s insane asylum.
― Voltaire
There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.
― Voltaire
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
― Voltaire
Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies.
― Voltaire
Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.
― Voltaire
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
― Voltaire
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.
― Voltaire
Beware of the words ‘internal security,’ for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor.
― Voltaire
It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.
― 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
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
― Voltaire
Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.
― 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
Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.
― Voltaire
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
― Voltaire
Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.
― 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
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
― Voltaire
To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
― Voltaire
A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble.
― Voltaire
Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities.
― Voltaire
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
― 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
The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.
― Voltaire
The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.
― Voltaire
The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else’s eyes.
― 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
One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.
― Voltaire
Man is free at the instant he wants to be.
― Voltaire
Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.
― 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
It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.
― Voltaire
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
― Voltaire
Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
― Voltaire
God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.
― 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
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
― Voltaire
God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
― 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
Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.
― Voltaire
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
― Voltaire
Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn’t illegal.
― Voltaire
Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.
― Voltaire
If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?
― Voltaire
The infinitely small have a pride infinitely great.
― Voltaire
The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.
― Voltaire
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
― Voltaire
If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.
― Voltaire
A State can be no better than the citizens of which it is composed. Our labour now is not to mould States but make citizens.
― Voltaire
May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.
― Voltaire
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
― Voltaire
He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
― Voltaire
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
― Voltaire
I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.
― Voltaire
Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
― Voltaire
The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.
― Voltaire
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
― Voltaire
Dare to think for yourself.
― Voltaire
‘Optimism,’ said Cacambo, ‘What is that?’ ‘Alas!’ replied Candide, ‘It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.’
― Voltaire
We are rarely proud when we are alone.
― 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
Injustice in the end produces independence.
― Voltaire
To hold a pen is to be at war.
― Voltaire
When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.
― 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
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
― Voltaire
The heart has its own reasons that reason can’t understand.
― Voltaire
Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.
― 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
It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.
― 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 cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.
― Voltaire
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
― Voltaire
Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.
― Voltaire
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
― Voltaire
I hate women because they always know where things are.
― Voltaire
We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know.
― Voltaire
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