Voltaire Quotes

“The more he became truly wise, the more he distrusted everything he knew.”

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

“You are very harsh.' 'I have seen the world.”

“The passions are the winds which fill the sails of the vessel; they sink it at times, but without them it would be impossible to make way.”

“History is the study of the world's crime”

“Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote.”

“But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.”

“Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.”

“A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not temperate.”

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

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

“When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not?”

“What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.”

“Work is often the father of pleasure.”

“Anything too stupid to be said is sung.”

“There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.”

“Man can have only a certain number of teeth, hair and ideas; there comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth, hair and ideas.”

“Everything I see about me is sowing the seeds of a revolution that is inevitable, though I shall not have the pleasure of seeing it. The lightning is so close at hand that it will strike at the first chance, and then there will be a pretty uproar. The young are fortunate, for they will see fine things.”

“Opinion is called the queen of the world; it is so, for when reason opposes it, it is condemned to death. It must rise twenty times from its ashes to gradually drive away the usurper.”

“Ask a toad what is beauty....; he will answer that it is a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat head, a yellow belly and a brown back.”

“Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.”

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

“A physician is one who pours drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less.”

“History is the lie commonly agreed upon.”

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

“A minister of state is excusable for the harm he does when the helm of government has forced his hand in a storm; but in the calm he is guilty of all the good he does not do.”

“Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.”

“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.”

“If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.”

“The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.”

“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.”

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”

“There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.”

“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”

“The most amazing and effective inventions are not those which do most honour to the human genius.”

“Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness.”

“What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.”

“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.”

“Learn to cultivate your own garden.”

“Dare to think for yourself.”

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

“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.”

“In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.”

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

“We have our arts, the ancients had theirs... We cannot raise obelisks a hundred feet high in a single piece, but our meridians are more exact.”

“I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little important and on top of this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my hope.”

“There can be no happiness without good health”

“To enjoy life we must touch much of it lightly.”

“Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.”

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