Quotes by Voltaire

Francois Marie Arouet, also known by his pen name Voltaire, was born on November 21, 1694 in Paris. Voltaire was one of France’s greatest enlightenment writers and philosophers, best known for his stylish wit and intelligence.

Voltaire was a prolific writer of novels, essays, poetry, and plays. He was also known for his historical and scientific writings, including over two thousand books and pamphlets and over twenty thousand letters.

Voltaire died in Paris on May 30, 1778 at the age of 83. Denied burial in a church cemetery, he was buried at an abbey in Champagne. In 1791, his remains were moved to their final resting place at the Pantheon in Paris.

~ Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is. ~

~ To enjoy life, we must touch much of it lightly. ~

~ The secret of being a bore is to tell everything. ~

~ Prejudices are what fools use for reason. ~

~ Prejudice is an opinion without judgment. ~

~ No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. ~

~ The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks. ~

~ We never live; we are always in the expectation of living. ~

~ I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age. ~

~ 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. ~

~ Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us. ~

~ It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere. ~

~ Nature has always had more power than education. ~

~ Do well and you will have no need for ancestors. ~

~ Nature has made us frivolous to console us for our miseries. ~

~ Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination. ~

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

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

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

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

~ 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. ~

~ Minds differ still more than faces. ~

~ He who dies before many witnesses always does so with courage. ~

~ Love truth, but pardon error.~

~ The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs. ~

~ Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous. ~

~ The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out. ~

~ It is said that the present is pregnant with the future. ~

~ Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung. ~

~ It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion. ~

~ Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound. ~

~ The biggest reward for a thing well done is to have done it. ~

~ Truth is a fruit which should not be plucked until it is ripe. ~

~ Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need. ~

~ Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time. ~

~ The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us. ~

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

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

~ Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. ~

~ There are men who can think no deeper than a fact. ~

~ Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. ~

~ There are truths that are not for all men, nor for all occasions. ~

~ He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise. ~

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

~ The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error. ~

~ Men use thoughts only to justify their wrongdoings and words only to conceal thier thoughts. ~

~ I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race. ~

~ It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part, the rest are lost in the multitude. ~

~ Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him. ~

~ Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives; very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of their times. ~

~ The ear is the avenue to the heart. ~

~ Tears are the silent language of grief. ~

~ Once the people begin to reason, all is lost. ~

~ We are rarely proud when we are alone. ~

~ Once: a philosopher... twice: a pervert. ~

~ It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow. ~

~ He who doesn't have the spirit of his time, has all its misery. ~

~ All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. ~

~ Whatever you do, stamp out abuses, and love those who love you. ~

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

~ All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they may be equally free.~

~ We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved. ~

~ To a toad, what is beauty? A female with two pop-eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly and spotted back. ~

~ How I like the boldness of the English, how I like the people who say what they think! ~

~ Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. ~

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

~ There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts. ~

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

~ Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all, and others to persecute those who reason. ~

 

~ Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. ~

~ Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce. ~

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