Voltaire Quotes

True power and true politeness are above vanity.

Before receiving your instruction, I must tell you what happened to me one day. I had just had a closet built at the end of my garden. I heard a mole arguing with a cockchafer; 'Here's a fine structure,' said the mole, 'it must have been a very powerful mole who did this work.' 'You're joking,' said the cockchafer; 'it's a cockchafer full of genius who is the architect of this building.' From that moment I resolved never to argue.

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

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

I swear that, not being able to be yours, I will belong to no one.

Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.

There can be no happiness without good health

It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms.

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know.

There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so prodigiously surpasses man in friendship, and nail him down to a table, and dissect him alive to show you the mezaraic veins... Answer me, Machinist, has Nature really arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may be incapable of suffering?

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

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him

Let us help one another to bear our burdens.

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.

The system of Descartes... seemed to give a plausible reason for all those phenomena; and this reason seemed more just, as it is simple and intelligible to all capacities. But in philosophy, a student ought to doubt of the things he fancies he understands too easily, as much as of those he does not understand.

Common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence.

Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted.

When one man speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when a man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics.

Let each of us boldly and honestly say: How little it is that I really know!

The best way to be boring is to include everything.

To enjoy life we must touch much of it lightly.

Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

The abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault.

Whosoever does not know how to recognize the faults of great men is incapable of estimating their perfections.

Quand celui à qui l'on parle ne comprend pas et celui qui parle ne se comprend pas, c'est de la métaphysique When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics.

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.

Every one should be his own physician. We ought to assist, and not to force nature. Eat with moderation...Nothing is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can procure digestion? Exercise. What will recruit strength? Sleep.

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.

Language is a very difficult thing to put into words.

He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

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

Feeble verses are those which sin not against rules, but against genius.

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

The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous.

The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him.

History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.

Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.

But in this country it is necessary, now and then, to put one admiral to death in order to inspire the others to fight.

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

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

Now, you receive all your ideas; therefore you receive your wish, you wish therefore necessarily. The word "liberty" does not therefore belong in any way to your will....The will, therefore, is not a faculty that one can call free. A free will is an expression absolutely void of sense, and what the scholastics have called will of indifference, that is to say willing without cause, is a chimera unworthy of being combated.

Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.

Those who are absent, by its means become present; it [mail] is the consolation of life.

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.

The harmony of a concert, to which you listen with delight, must have on certain classes of minute animals the effect of terrible thunder; perhaps it kills them.

It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

Virtue debases itself in justifying itself.

May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.

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.

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.

The road to the heart is the ear