Voltaire Quotes

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

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

Voltaire

To hold a pen is to be at war.

Voltaire

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

Voltaire

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

Voltaire

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

Voltaire

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

Voltaire

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

Voltaire

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

Voltaire

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

Voltaire

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

Voltaire

All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.

Voltaire

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

Voltaire

Better is the enemy of good.

Voltaire

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

Voltaire

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Voltaire

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

Voltaire

Injustice in the end produces independence.

Voltaire

Common sense is not so common.

Voltaire

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Voltaire

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

Voltaire

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.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

Voltaire

Tears are the silent language of grief.

Voltaire

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Voltaire

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

Voltaire

We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire

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.

Voltaire

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

Voltaire