Voltaire Quotes

“The Jews are of all peoples the grosses, the most ferocious, the most fanatical, and the most absurd.”

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

“Answer me, you who believe that animals are only machines. Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all?”

“History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes. L'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs”

“If we do not exert the right of eating our neighbor, it is because we have other means of making good cheer”

“It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.”

“By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.”

“History never repeats itself. Man always does.”

“It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.”

“In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.”

“Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.”

“He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.”

“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”

“Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world.”

“Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.”

“Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness.”

“Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”

“No one is ignorant that our character and turn of mind are intimately connected with the water-closet.”

“Paradise is where I am”

“The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.”

“Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.”

“Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France.”

“Learn to cultivate your own garden.”

“Being a bird ain't all about flying and shitting from high places.”

“If there’s life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe’s insane asylum.”