Voltaire Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Voltaire

Voltaire Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Voltaire quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

I am bored in France because everyone resembles Voltaire. — Charles Baudelaire

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

All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God. — Voltaire

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world. — Voltaire

What is this optimism?" said Cacambo. "Alas!" said Candide, "it is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong. — Voltaire

Voltaire was deeply impressed by it and cited it often. — Wendy Doniger

Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them? — Voltaire

Irregularity is inherent in our very nature; expecting people to be perfectly wise is as crazy as putting wings on dogs or horns on eagles — Voltaire

The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant. — Voltaire

Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors. — Voltaire

Meslier was the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the Christian religion. — Voltaire

God created women only to tame men. — Voltaire

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

I am infinitely more touched by your extreme generosity than with the inhumanity of that gentleman — Voltaire

We are at the end of all our troubles, and at the beginning of happiness — Voltaire

Prejudices are what rule the vulgar crowd. — Voltaire

From May 1717 to April 1718, Voltaire sat comfortably in the infamous prison insulting the Regent and reading Homer. — Jessica Powell

The only reward to be expected from the cultivation of literature is contempt if one fails and and hatred if one succeeds. — Voltaire

The way to become boring is to say everything. — Voltaire

It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms. — Voltaire

There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them. — Voltaire

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 — Voltaire

The Baron was one of Westphalia's most potent aristocrats, since his mansion boasted both a door and windows. — Voltaire

Minds differ still more than faces. — Voltaire

When it comes to money, everyone is of the same religion — Voltaire

A historian has many duties ... the first is not to slander; the second is not to bore — Voltaire

God has punished the knave, and the devil has drowned the rest. — Voltaire

The superfluous is very necessary. — Voltaire

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable. — Voltaire

Anything too stupid to be said is sung. — Voltaire

Voltaire, as full of life as summer is full of blossoms, giving his ideas upon all subjects at the expense of prince and king, was exiled to England. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness. — Voltaire

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

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

God should worshiped, not avenged. It is absurd for insects like ourselves to think we can avenge God. — Voltaire

You write your name in the snow Yet say nothing. — Voltaire

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker. — Voltaire

I don't know where I am going, but I am on my way. — Voltaire

Hast thou found out, Voltaire, that it is bliss to die,
And does thy hideous smile over thy bleached bones fly? — Alfred De Musset

Wine is the divine juice of September. — Voltaire

To achieve a goal, a dream, a wish, you must plan it out for success! — Voltaire

The most amazing and effective inventions are not those which do most honour to the human genius. — Voltaire

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

For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm. — Voltaire

I have wanted to kill myself a million times,
but somehow I am still in love with life. — Voltaire

Why are the Jews hated? It is the inevitable result of their laws; they either have to conquer everybody or be hated by the whole human race ... — Voltaire

Common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence. — Voltaire

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die. — Voltaire

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

Pleasure has its time; so too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation. — Voltaire

The further I go, the more I am confirmed in the idea that systems of metaphysics are for philosophers are what novels are for women. — Voltaire

Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up. — Voltaire

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

An opportunity fordoing an injury happens a hundred times a day, hut for doing good not once a year, says Zoroaster. — Voltaire

Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one. — Voltaire

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

What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide.
"That is because I know what life is," said Martin. — Voltaire

Everything can be borne except contempt. — Voltaire

Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers. — Voltaire

He vainly said that human will is free, — Voltaire

I mean, this man was not /Voltaire/ we killed. — Donna Tartt

Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were of course exterminated. — Voltaire

Voltaire was a smart cookie. — John Perry

If God is always on the side of the big battalions as Voltaire says, then, let us not waste our time with little detachments! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

After Voltaire: envy is chained to the portico of the temple of glory and can neither enter nor leave. — Mason Cooley

Pangloss most cruelly deceived me when he said that everything in the world is for the best. — Voltaire

It is best one should quote what one doesn't understand at all in the language one knows the least — Voltaire

Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them. — Voltaire

It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force than the minds of a single village. — Voltaire

History is the lie commonly agreed upon. — Voltaire

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose. — Voltaire

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one. — Voltaire

Men argue. Nature acts. — Voltaire

The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Variant: The adjective is the enemy of the substantive. — Voltaire

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

A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity. — Voltaire

This is no time to be making new enemies. — Voltaire

Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies. — Voltaire

I keep to old books, for they teach me something; from the new I learn very little — Voltaire

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

History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below. — Voltaire

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

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

There is only one morality, as there is only one geometry. — Voltaire

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

One does not arrest Voltaire. — Charles De Gaulle

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

If it's too silly to be said, it can always be sung. — Voltaire

He's over your head! He was, but naturally I'd flung myself into the Sea of Voltaire anyway and emerged with nothing more than several aphorisms. — Sue Monk Kidd

Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth! — Voltaire

Opinion rules the world, but in the long run it is the philosophers who shape opinion — Voltaire

History is a pack of lies we play on the dead. — Voltaire

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

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

She blushed and so did he. She greeted him in a faltering voice, and he spoke to her without knowing what he was saying. — Voltaire

A torch lighted in the forests of America set all Europe in conflagration. — Voltaire

God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh. — Voltaire

The prudent man does himself good; the virtuous one does it to other men. — Voltaire

Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel that when we find one who is only weak, we are too happy. — Voltaire

What's Optimism?' asked Cacambo. 'I'm afraid to say,' said Candide, 'that it's a mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly. — Voltaire