Voltaire Quotes

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

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

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

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

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.

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

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us

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.

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.

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

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

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

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

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

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

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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

Music is the pathway to the heart.

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.

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

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

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

Self love is the instrument of our preservation.

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.

had no need of a guide to learn ignorance

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

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.

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

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

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

We are obliged to place ourselves on the level of our age before we can rise above it.

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.

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

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

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

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

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

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.

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

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