Voltaire famous quotes

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
-- Voltaire

#Life #Peace #Atheist

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
-- Voltaire

#Wisdom #Clever #Men

The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.
-- Voltaire

#Happiness #Cheer Up #Decision

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

#Motivational #Inspiration #Challenges

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Motivational #Yoga

I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.
-- Voltaire

#Travel #Way #My Way

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

#Good Day #Opportunity #Years

‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
-- Voltaire

#Positive #Forget #Life Is

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
-- Voltaire

#Funny #Failure #Humor

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.
-- Voltaire

#Birthday #Resurrection #Reincarnation

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
-- Voltaire

#Wisdom #Freedom #Fool

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
-- Voltaire

#Money #Art #Humor

Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.
-- Voltaire

#Life #Soul #Liberty

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
-- Voltaire

#Religious #Inspiration #Over You

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Wisdom #Educational

Common sense is not so common.
-- Voltaire

#Life #Wisdom #Witty

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Thinking #Privilege

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Life #Spiritual

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Life #Freedom

The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Husband #Wife

The best is the enemy of the good.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Military #Learning

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
-- Voltaire

#Marriage #Being Single #Humorous

I have chosen to be happy because it is goo for my health.
-- Voltaire

#Chosen

Men 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.
-- Voltaire

#Gun #Men #Law

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
-- Voltaire

#Believe #Divorce #Ancient

I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
-- Voltaire

#Real #Book #Bored

Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them
-- Voltaire

#People

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.
-- Voltaire

#Believe #Independent #Taste

Men argue. Nature acts.
-- Voltaire

#Nature #Men #Arguing

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.
-- Voltaire

#God #Spiritual #Imagine

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.
-- Voltaire

#Birthday #Age #Misery

Only your friends steal your books.
-- Voltaire

#Book #Stealing

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
-- Voltaire

#Future #Pregnancy #Goal

What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?
-- Voltaire

#Cutting #Men #Heaven

Clever tyrants are never punished.
-- Voltaire

#Clever #Tyrants

History is the lie commonly agreed upon.
-- Voltaire

#Freedom #Truth #Lying

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
-- Voltaire

#Ignorance #Learning #Political

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
-- Voltaire

#Knowledge #Learning #Men

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.
-- Voltaire

#Funny #Sarcastic #Mind

It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.
-- Voltaire

#Soul #Comfort #Candide

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Religious #Freedom

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.
-- Voltaire

#Atheist #Believe #Atrocities

We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one
-- Voltaire

#Knowing #House #Looks

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
-- Voltaire

#Pride #Littles

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
-- Voltaire

#Book #Beer #Ignorant

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

#Risk #Use #Tongue

Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all.
-- Voltaire

#Health #Doctors #Drug

History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.
-- Voltaire

#History #Crime #Register

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.
-- Voltaire

#Heart #Soul #Sensual

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.
-- Voltaire

#Mother #Animal #Men

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?
-- Voltaire

#Stupid #Heart #Love Life

I loved him as we always love for the first time; with idolatry and wild passion.
-- Voltaire

#Love #Passion #Firsts

Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.
-- Voltaire

#Optimistic #Optimism #Maintaining

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
-- Voltaire

#Country #Uprising #Needs

It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.
-- Voltaire

#Angel #Air #Void

Love truth, but pardon error.
-- Voltaire

#Love #Life #Dream

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.
-- Voltaire

#Nature #Animal #Men

God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
-- Voltaire

#God #Spiritual #Circles

Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.
-- Voltaire

#Tolerance #Mankind #Ill

Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.
-- Voltaire

#Depression #Thinking #Bipolar

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

#Taste #Suits #Enjoy

Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.
-- Voltaire

#Reading #Soul #Enlightened

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.
-- Voltaire

#Country #Greatness #Men

Come! you presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure.
-- Voltaire

#Giving #Pleasure #Kill Me

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.
-- Voltaire

#Education #Wisdom #Book

It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.
-- Voltaire

#Music #Impossible #Translate

It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.
-- Voltaire

#Real #Inequality #Misfortunes

Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.
-- Voltaire

#Acceptance #Garden #Thorns

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.
-- Voltaire

#Happiness #Lonely #Solitude

A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble.
-- Voltaire

#Love #Cute #Beautiful

History should be written as philosophy.
-- Voltaire

#Philosophy #History #Should

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.
-- Voltaire

#Brother #Men #Monsters

The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.
-- Voltaire

#Funny #Hilarious #Silly

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.
-- Voltaire

#Stupid #Book #People

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
-- Voltaire

#Life #Happy Birthday #Giving

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.
-- Voltaire

#Earthquakes #Political #Politics

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
-- Voltaire

#Truth #Believe #People

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Faith #Atheist

All is a miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of stars, the activity of light, the life of all animals, all are grand and perpetual miracles.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Stars #Animal

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.
-- Voltaire

#Funny #Triumph #Reason

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
-- Voltaire

#Funny #Stupid #Humor

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.
-- Voltaire

#Law #Tyrants #Support

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

#Inspirational #Men #Risk

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.
-- Voltaire

#Love #Self #Anorexia

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
-- Voltaire

#Funny #Use #Fool

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
-- Voltaire

#Death #Respect #Dying

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Life #Beauty

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
-- Voltaire

#Death #Forgiveness #Nature

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
-- Voltaire

#Art #Health #Medicine

All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
-- Voltaire

#God #Reality #Men

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
-- Voltaire

#Faith #Spiritual #Cancer

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
-- Voltaire

#Funny #Life #God

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
-- Voltaire

#Peace #Crazy #War

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
-- Voltaire

#Dance #Reading #Two

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
-- Voltaire

#Inspirational #Political #Cynical

What 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.
-- Voltaire

#Forgiveness #Failure #Law

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
-- Voltaire

#Love #Romantic #Girlfriend

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
-- Voltaire

#Christian #Men #Inspire

Tears are the silent language of grief.
-- Voltaire

#Sympathy #Grief #Losing A Loved One

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
-- Voltaire

#Women #Men #Sentimental