Voltaire Quotes - Page 3

But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.''You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.
Voltaire
Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.
Voltaire
Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.
Voltaire
Speaking of Newton but also commenting more broadly on education and the Enlightenment: "I have seen a professor of mathematics only because he was great in his vocation, buried like a king who had done well by his subjects.
Voltaire
Writing is the painting of the voice.
Voltaire
We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence
Voltaire
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid - one must also be polite.
Voltaire
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
Voltaire
Fear could never make a virtue.
Voltaire
had no need of a guide to learn ignorance
Voltaire
All our ancient history, as one of our wits remarked, is no more than accepted fiction.
Voltaire
Injustice in the end produces independence.
Voltaire
The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.
Voltaire
But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.
Voltaire
Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
Voltaire
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Voltaire
I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.
Voltaire
Having lived with kings, I have become a king in my own home.
Voltaire
The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.
Voltaire
Candide, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery.
Voltaire
Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.
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
Can you really believe that a drop of urine is an infinity of monads, and that each of these has ideas, however obscure, of the universe as a whole?
Voltaire
All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
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 have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.", May 16, 1767)
Voltaire
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
Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.
Voltaire
Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
Voltaire
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
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
If there were no God it would be necessary to invent him.
Voltaire
Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
Voltaire
Fear succeeds crime - it is its punishment.
Voltaire
It is fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions.
Voltaire
Weakness on both sides is as we know the motto of all quarrels.
Voltaire
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.
Voltaire
Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
Voltaire
History is just the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes.
Voltaire
The first step my son which one makes in the world is the one on which depends the rest of our days.
Voltaire
All the known world excepting only savage nations is governed by books.
Voltaire
A witty saying proves nothing.
Voltaire
One should always cite what one does not understand at all in the language one understands the least.
Voltaire
Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies."(Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)
Voltaire
Froth at the top dregs at bottom but the middle excellent.
Voltaire
If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?
Voltaire
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
Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege.
Voltaire
What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
Voltaire
The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us.
Voltaire
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
Voltaire
The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.
Voltaire
And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence many times, and said to himself over and over again that he was the most miserable of men, I give you permission to throw me head-first into the sea.
Voltaire
My prayer to God is a very short one "Oh Lord make my enemies ridiculous!" God has granted it.
Voltaire
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God grante
Voltaire
The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.
Voltaire
God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart to the finest verses chanted by the wicked.
Voltaire
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.
Voltaire
When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
Voltaire