Love Voltaire Quotes & Sayings

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

The ear is the avenue to the heart. — Voltaire

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

Change everything except your loves. — Voltaire

He who is involved in ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for reality, and his own imagination for prophesy, is a fanatical novice of great hope and promise, and will soon advance to the higher stage and kill men for the love of God. — Voltaire

Alas ... I too have known love, that ruler of hearts, that soul of our soul: it's never brought me anything except one kiss and twenty kicks in the rump. How could such a beautiful cause produce such an abominable effect on you? — Voltaire

Fairest lady," said Candide, "when a man is in love, jealous, and whipped by the Inquisition, he no longer knows what he's doing. — 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

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

Love truth, but pardon error. — Voltaire

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

Self love is the instrument of our preservation. — Voltaire

I've had some experience of this love, this love that rules our hearts, which is the soul of our souls; all it got me was a kiss and twenty kicks in the ass. How could so beautiful a cause have produced in you such an abominable effect? — Voltaire

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

Well, there's just some universal truths in a way that I've just observed to be true. You read Voltaire. You read modern literature. Anywhere you go, there's these observations about romantic love and what it does people, and these rotten feelings that rarely are people meaning to do that to each other. — Feist

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

My dear young lady, when you are in love, and jealous, and have been flogged by the Inquisition, there's no knowing what you may do. — Voltaire

Love is a cloth which imagination embroiders. — Voltaire

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it. — Voltaire

When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself. — Voltaire

No, nothing has the power to part me from you; our love is based upon virtue, and will last as long as our lives. — 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

I've wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but I still love life. That ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most pernicious inclinations. What could be more stupid than to persist in carrying a burden that we constantly want to cast off, to hold our existence in horror, yet cling to it nonetheless, to fondle the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten our heart? — Voltaire

Beautiful maiden," answered Candide, "when a man is in love, is jealous, and has been flogged by the Inquisition, he becomes lost to all reflection. — Voltaire

Love truth, and pardon error. — Voltaire

There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts. — Voltaire

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

I know this love, that sovereign of hearts, that soul of our souls; yet it never cost me more than a kiss and twenty kicks on the backside. How could this beautiful cause produce in you an effect so abominable. — Voltaire

You sweet delusions of my mind
(From the poem 'From Love to Friendship') — Voltaire

All events are linked together in the best of possible worlds; after all, if you had not been driven from a fine castle by being kicked in the backside for love of Miss Cunegonde, if you hadn't been sent before the Inquisition, if you hadn't traveled across America on foot, if you hadn't given a good sword thrust to the baron, if you hadn't lost all your sheep from the good land of Eldorado, you wouldn't be sitting here eating candied citron and pistachios. - That is very well put, said Candide, but we must cultivate our garden. — 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

Shall I not render a service to men in speaking to them only of morality? This morality is so pure, so holy, so universal, so clear, so ancient, that it seems to come from God himself, like the light which we regard as the first of his works. Has he not given men self-love to secure their preservation; benevolence, beneficence, and virtue to control their self-love; the natural need to form a society; pleasure to enjoy, pain to warn us to enjoy in moderation, passions to spur us to great deeds, and wisdom to curb our passions? — Voltaire

If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him. But all nature cries aloud that He does exist.
(Voltaire) — Elizabeth Kales

I have been in several provinces. In some one-half of the people are fools, in others they are too cunning; in some they are weak and simple, in others they affect to be witty; in all, the principal occupation is love, the next is slander, and the third is talking nonsense. — Voltaire

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

I already began to inspire the men with love. My breast began to take its right form, and such a breast! white, firm, and formed like that of the Venus de' Medici; my eyebrows were as black as jet, and as for my eyes, they darted flames and eclipsed the luster of the stars, as I was told by the poets of our part of the world. My maids, when they dressed and undressed me, used to fall into an ecstasy in viewing me before and behind; and all the men longed to be in their places. — Voltaire

We adore each other, and yet are afraid to love; we are consumed with a passion which we both condemn. Zadig — 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

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

People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines ... It appears to me, besides, that such people can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel. — Voltaire

Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you. — Voltaire

But how conceive a God supremely good/ Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves,/ Yet scatters evil with as large a hand?
[Written after an earthquake in Lisbon killed over 15,000 people] — Voltaire

I love that Voltaire was so willing to shock his readers with arbitrary cruelty. And I can completely relate to it. — George Meyer

Tolerance, which is one form of love of neighbor, must manifest itself not only in our personal relations, but also in the arena of society as well. In the world of opinion and politics, tolerance is that virtue by which liberated minds conquer the evils of bigotry and hatred. Tolerance implies more than forbearance or the passive enduring of ideas different from our own. Properly conceived, tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them. Tolerance quickens our appreciation and increases our respect for our neighbor's point of view. It goes even further; it assumes a militant aspect when the rights of an opponent are assailed. Voltaire's dictum, "I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," is for all ages and places the perfect utterance of the tolerant ideal. — Joshua Loth Liebman

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

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

A hundred times I have wanted to kill myself, but I was still in love with life. This absurd weakness is perhaps one of our deadliest attachments: can anything be more foolish than to keep carrying a fardel and yet keep wanting to throw it to the ground? To hold one's existence in horror, and yet cling to it? — Voltaire