Voltaire Quotes

Whatever you do, trample down abuses, and love those who love you. Different translation: Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing superstition, and love those who love you.

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

Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.

The fate of a nation has often depended upon the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.

Errors flies from mouth to mouth, from pen to pen, and to destroy it takes ages.

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

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

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

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege.

The more a man knows, the less he talks.

God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions.

I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste.

We know that all the arts are brothers, that each of them illuminates another, and that a universal light results.

Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote.

Now is not the time for making new enemies.

Feeble verses are those which sin not against rules, but against genius.

I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age.

Men argue. Nature acts.

Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

The most genuine and efficacious charity is that which greases the paws of the priests; such charity covers a multitude of sins.

Go get yourself crucified and then rise on the third day.

I have no morals, yet I am a very moral person

But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

All pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were the serious short also.

Being a bird ain't all about flying and shitting from high places.

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

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.

A woman can keep one secret the secret of her age.

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.

Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.

I have been a hundred times on the point of killing myself, but still was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts. What can be more absurd than choosing to carry a burden that one really wants to throw to the ground? To detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? To caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?

Now, you receive all your ideas; therefore you receive your wish, you wish therefore necessarily. The word "liberty" does not therefore belong in any way to your will....The will, therefore, is not a faculty that one can call free. A free will is an expression absolutely void of sense, and what the scholastics have called will of indifference, that is to say willing without cause, is a chimera unworthy of being combated.

God created sex. Priests created marriage.

Dare to think for yourself.

Every man can educate himself. It's shameful to put one's mind into the hands of those whom you wouldn't entrust with your money. Dare to think for yourself.

The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters; always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous - cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity.

A good imitation is the most perfect originality

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

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.

The road to the heart is the ear

The only reward to be expected from literature is contempt if one fails and hatred if one succeeds.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

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.

The right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature; like an inheritance, it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.