Voltaire Quotes
Voltaire Quotes
- 1
A witty saying proves nothing.
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- 2
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
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- 3
An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
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- 4
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
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- 5
Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
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- 6
Anything too stupid to be said is sung.
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- 7
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
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- 8
Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
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- 9
Better is the enemy of good.
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- 10
Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
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- 11
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
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- 12
Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
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- 13
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
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- 14
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
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- 15
Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.
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- 16
Everything is for the best in this best of possible worlds.
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- 17
Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.
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- 18
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
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- 19
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
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- 20
Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
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- 21
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
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- 22
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
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- 23
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
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- 24
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
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- 25
He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
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- 26
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
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- 27
He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.
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- 28
He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
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- 29
History should be written as philosophy.
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- 30
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.
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- 31
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.
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- 32
I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.
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- 33
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
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- 34
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
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- 35
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
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- 36
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
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- 37
If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
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- 38
If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.
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- 39
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
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- 40
In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.
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- 41
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.
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- 42
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
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- 43
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
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- 44
Injustice in the end produces independence.
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- 45
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
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- 46
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
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- 47
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
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- 48
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
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- 49
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
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- 50
It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.
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- 51
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
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- 52
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.
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- 53
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
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- 54
Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
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- 55
Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.
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- 56
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.
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- 57
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.
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- 58
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
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- 59
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
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- 60
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
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- 61
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
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- 62
Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
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- 63
My life is a struggle.
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- 64
Nature has always had more force than education.
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- 65
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
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- 66
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
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- 67
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
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- 68
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
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- 69
Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
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- 70
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
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- 71
Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.
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- 72
Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.
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- 73
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
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- 74
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
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- 75
Society therefore is an ancient as the world.
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- 76
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
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- 77
Tears are the silent language of grief.
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- 78
The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.
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- 79
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
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- 80
The best is the enemy of the good.
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- 81
The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.
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- 82
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.
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- 83
The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.
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- 84
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.
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- 85
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.
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- 86
The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.
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- 87
The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
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- 88
The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
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- 89
The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.
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- 90
The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.
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- 91
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
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- 92
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.
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- 93
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
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- 94
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
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- 95
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.
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- 96
Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.
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- 97
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
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- 98
To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
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- 99
To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.
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- 100
Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.
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- 101
We cannot wish for that we know not.
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- 102
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
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- 103
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.
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- 104
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
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- 105
When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.
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- 106
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
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- 107
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.
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