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.
VoltaireThe monster, fanaticism, still exists, and whoever seeks after truth will run the risk of being persecuted.
VoltaireThere 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?
VoltaireIt 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.
VoltaireThe mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else's eyes.
VoltaireYou have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you.
VoltaireMen 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.
VoltaireOne 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.
VoltaireI am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests.
VoltaireMen, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent.
VoltaireMan can have only a certain number of teeth, hair and ideas; there comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth, hair and ideas.
VoltaireIt 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.
VoltaireThere is no such thing as an accident. What we call by that name is the effect of some cause which we do not see.
VoltaireOur 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
VoltaireA multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.
VoltaireGive 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.
VoltaireI also know that we must cultivate our garden. For when man was put in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, to work; which proves that man was not born for rest.
Voltaire