Voltaire Quotes

Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are.

Fanaticism is a monster that pretends to be the child of religion

To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.

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

Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities.

Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.

The more you know, the less sure you are.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value - zero.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.

Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.

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

Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.

Language is a very difficult thing to put into words.

Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.

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

Love truth, but pardon error.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

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

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.

One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

He who seeks truth should be of no country.

We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

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

To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart.

Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.

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

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.

Writing is the painting of the voice.

Originality is nothing but judicious plagiarism.

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

It is not the answers you give, but the questions you ask.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

It is the poverty connected with our species which subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers.

To really enjoy pleasures, you must know how to leave them.

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

Persistence with patience and prayer pays with profits, prosperity and peace of mind.

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.

Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.

Prejudice is an opinion without judgment.