Voltaire Quotes (373 Quotes)

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

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

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

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

This body, which was called and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was not Holy, nor Roman , nor an Empire.

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

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.

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.

Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.

Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.

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

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

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

Marriage is the only adventure open to the timid.

To be at peace in crime ah, who can thus flatter himself.

Love truth, but pardon error.

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

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

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

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

In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

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

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.

Doctors prescribe medicine of which they know little to cure diseases of which they know lessen human beings of which they know nothing.

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

Slavery is also as ancient as war, and was as human nature.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

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.

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

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

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

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.

This poem will never reach its destination. On Rousseau's Ode To Posterity

A long dispute means that both parties are wrong.

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

It is easier to write on money than to obtain it, and those who gain it, jest much at those who only know how to write about it

Many are destined to reason wrongly others, not to reason At all and others, to persecute those who do reason.

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

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

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

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

When he who hears doesn't know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks doesn't know what he himself means that is philosophy.

Those who are absent, by its means become present it (mail) is the consolation of life.

I doubt not that in due time, when the arts are brought to perfection, some means will be found to give a sound head to a man who has none at all

The best is the enemy of the good.