Voltaire Quotes

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

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

I serve your Beaune to my friends, but your Volnay I keep for myself.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

Virtue between men is a commerce of good actions: he who has no part in this commerce must not be reckoned.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is Metaphysics.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

All styles are good except the tiresome kind.

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

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

Now is not the time for making new enemies.

Change everything except your loves.

Prejudice is opinion without judgement.

History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.

Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them.

We must cultivate our own garden.

Society therefore is an ancient as the world.

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

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

Luxury has been railed at for two thousand years, in verse and in prose, and it has always been loved.

Virtue debases itself in justifying itself.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.

Our labour preserves us from three great evils -- weariness, vice, and want.

The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.

If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?

It is proved...that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose.

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities.

Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.

We only half live when we only half think.

There is a pleasure in not being pleased.

Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

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

To succeed in chaining the multitude, you must seem to wear the same fetters.

It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes.

the women are never at a loss, God provides for them, let us run.

A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.

Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

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

An infallible method of making fanatics is to persuade before you instruct.

The road to the heart is the ear

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

Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties.

Hope should no more be a virtue than fear; we fear and we hope, according to what is promised or threatened us.

Paradise is where I am