Voltaire Quotes & Sayings

He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado. "We do not pray to him at all," said the reverend sage. "We have nothing to ask of him. He has given us all we want, and we give him thanks continually. — Voltaire

Self love is like that instrument by which we propagate the species: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and it must be hidden. — Voltaire

You have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you. — Voltaire

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. — Voltaire

It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made. — Voltaire

I envy animals for two things - their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them. — Voltaire

How many things here do I not want (Voltaire when in London. — Voltaire

Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state. — Voltaire

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

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

Contemplation of the stupidity which deems happiness possible almost made Voltaire happy. — Voltaire

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. — Voltaire

Just for the sake of amusement, ask each passenger to tell you his story, and if you find a single one who hasn't often cursed his life, who hasn't told himself he's the most miserable man in the world, you can throw me overboard head first. — Voltaire

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

The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists. — Voltaire

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

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

The necessity of saying something, the perplexity of having nothing to say, and a desire of being witty, are three circumstances which alone are capable of making even the greatest writer ridiculous. — Voltaire

Fear could never make virtue. — Voltaire

Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an impoisoned and acrid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways. — Voltaire

Everything happens through immutable laws, ... everything is necessary ... There are, some persons say, some events which are necessary and others which are not. It would be very comic that one part of the world was arranged, and the other were not; that one part of what happens had to happen and that another part of what happens did not have to happen. If one looks closely at it, one sees that the doctrine contrary to that of destiny is absurd; but there are many people destined to reason badly; others not to reason at all others to persecute those who reason. — Voltaire

Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people. — Voltaire

Mortals are equal; their mask differs. — Voltaire

As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites. — Voltaire

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy. — Voltaire

My friend," said the orator to him, "do you believe the Pope to be the Anti-Christ?"
"I have not heard it," answered Candide; "but whether he be, or whether he not, I want bread. — Voltaire

If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it. — Voltaire

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

Oh! what a superior man," said Candide below his breath. "What a great genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him. — Voltaire

The multitude of books is making us ignorant. — Voltaire

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

The heart has its own reasons that reason can't understand. — Voltaire

The malevolence of men revealed itself to his mind in all of its ugliness — Voltaire

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce. — Voltaire

If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor. — 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

A long dispute means both parties are wrong. — Voltaire

I also know that we should cultivate our gardens. — Voltaire

The best way to be boring is to include everything. — Voltaire

Miss, you are seventy-two percent noble and don't have a cent. Whether or not you marry the greatest lord in South America - who has an extraordinarily handsome mustache - is entirely up to you. — Voltaire

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil. — Voltaire

The perfect is the enemy of the good. — Voltaire

Everyone places his good where he can and has as much of it as he can, in his own way. — Voltaire

Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same. — Voltaire

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

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

Let us cultivate our garden. — Voltaire

They are mad men (Jews), but you should not burn them for that. — Voltaire

Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best. — Voltaire

All is for the best in the best of possible worlds. — Voltaire

Let us meet four times a year in a grand temple with music, and thank God for all his gifts. There is one sun. There is one God. Let us have one religion. Then all mankind will be brethren. — Voltaire

Opinion is called the queen of the world; it is so, for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to gradually drive away the usurper. — Voltaire

But, once again," persisted the European, "what state would you choose?" The Brahmin answered: "The state where only the laws are obeyed." "That is an old answer," said the councillor. "It is none the worse for that," said the Brahmin. "Where is that country?" asked the councillor. "We must look for it," answered the Brahmin. — Voltaire

The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force. — Voltaire

A witty saying proves nothing. — Voltaire

A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely to reconcile health with intemperance. — Voltaire

It's not inequality which is the real misfortune, it's dependence — Voltaire

Shakespeare is a drunken savage with some imagination whose plays please only in London and Canada. — Voltaire

He vainly said that human will is free, — Voltaire

Crush the infamous thing! — Voltaire

It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God? — Voltaire

The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people. — Voltaire

The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor. — Voltaire

War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not color his crime with the pretext of justice. — Voltaire

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him — Voltaire

Give me the patience for the small things of life, courage for the great trials of life. Help me to do my best each day and then go to sleep knowing God is awake. — Voltaire

Society therefore is an ancient as the world. — Voltaire

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

Every evil begets some good. — Voltaire

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law. — Voltaire

One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly. — Voltaire

He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice. — Voltaire

Inspiration: A peculiar effect of divine flatulence emitted by the Holy Spirit which hisses into the ears of a few chosen of God. — Voltaire

Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world. — Voltaire

We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest. — Voltaire

Man can have only a certain number of teeth, hair and ideas; there comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth, hair and ideas. — Voltaire

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge. — Voltaire

My life's dream has been a perpetual nightmare. — Voltaire

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

Doubt is not a very agreeable status, but certainty is a ridiculous one. — Voltaire

If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero. — Voltaire

A true god surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough ... [or inspired] books, filled with contradictions, madness, and horror. — Voltaire

We must cultivate our garden. — Voltaire

There was never anything so gallant, so spruce, so brilliant, and so well disposed as the two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, and cannon made music such as Hell itself had never heard. The cannons first of all laid flat about six thousand men on each side; the muskets swept away from this best of worlds nine or ten thousand ruffians who infested its surface. The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands. The whole might amount to thirty thousand souls. Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery. — Voltaire

A fondness for roving, for making a name for themselves in their onw country, and for boasting of what they had seen in their travels, was so strong in our two wanderers, that they resolved to be no longer happy; and demanded permission of the king to leave the country. — Voltaire

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous. — Voltaire

One should always cite what one does not understand at all in the language one understands the least. — Voltaire

To make a vow for life is to make oneself a slave. — Voltaire

All our ancient history, as one of our wits remarked, is no more than accepted fiction. — Voltaire

Man was born to live either in a state of distracting inquietude or of lethargic disgust. — Voltaire

Love has various lodgings; the same word does not always signify the same thing. — Voltaire

True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others. — Voltaire

Injustice in the end produces independence. — Voltaire

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

I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher. — Voltaire

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

The women are never at a loss, God provides for them, let us run. — Voltaire

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

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

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