So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.
VoltaireI read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.
VoltaireWe are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence
VoltaireEvery abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself.
VoltaireLiberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting.
VoltaireWe have our arts, the ancients had theirs... We cannot raise obelisks a hundred feet high in a single piece, but our meridians are more exact.
VoltaireMen use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
VoltaireWhat is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
VoltaireWhen one man speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when a man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics.
VoltaireNothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
VoltaireBut there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.' 'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.
VoltaireIf God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him; let us worship God through Jesus if we must - if ignorance has so far prevailed that this name can still be spoken in all seriousness without being taken as a synonym for rapine and carnage. Every sensible man, every honourable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.
VoltaireNow, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies." (Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)
VoltaireTo a toad what is beauty? A female with two lovely pop-eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly, and green spotted back.
VoltaireThe policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a state equal to that of animals, whom nature has furnished with food, clothing, and shelter.
VoltaireIt must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms.
VoltaireMeslier was the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the Christian religion.
VoltaireNeedless to say since Christ's expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die.
VoltaireMonsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.
VoltaireA circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such sublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a quadrant and a little arithmetic.
VoltaireMen must have somewhat altered the course of nature; for they were not born wolves, yet they have become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four-pounders or bayonets, yet they have made themselves bayonets and guns to destroy each other. In the same category I place not only bankruptcies, but the law which carries off the bankrupts’ effects, so as to defraud their creditors.
VoltaireThe atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis the eternity of things and of inevitability.
VoltaireAmong the illusions which have invested our civilization is an absolute belief that the solutions to our problems must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise... The reality is that our problems are largely the product of that application.
Voltaire