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Voltaire [1694-1778] French

Rank: 3
Writer

François-Marie Arouet, known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state.

God, Men, Nature, Religion, Alone, Good, Power, Work, Age, Art, Brainy, Death, Faith, Freedom, Love, Marriage, Money, Sad, War, Women, Architecture, Beauty, Best, Birthday, Chance, Communication, Education, Experience, Famous, Fear, Friendship, Funny, Future, Gardening, Government, Great, Home, Imagination, Independence, Intelligence, Knowledge, Legal, Life, Medical, Patriotism, Poetry, Respect, Sympathy, Time, Truth

Quote	Tags	Rank
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.	Birthday, God, Life	58
The ear is the avenue to the heart.	Love	102
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.		103
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.		104
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.	Freedom	105
Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.	Brainy	106
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.	Freedom	107
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.	Nature	108
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.		109
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.	Brainy	110
To hold a pen is to be at war.	Communication, War	111
Common sense is not so common.	Intelligence	112
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.	Good	113
No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.		114
The best is the enemy of the good.	Best, Good	115
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?	Experience	116
Better is the enemy of good.	Good	117
Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.		118
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.		119
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.	Beauty, Work	120
All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.	God, Knowledge, Men	121
A witty saying proves nothing.		122
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.	Art, Medical, Nature	123
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.	Money, Religion	124
When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.		125
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.	War	126
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.	God	201
The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.		202
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.	Power	203
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.		204
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.	Future	205
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.	God	206
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.		207
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.	Time	208
Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.		209
The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.	Architecture	210
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.	Great	211
Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.		212
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.	Men, Women	213
Clever tyrants are never punished.		214
Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.		215
Injustice in the end produces independence.	Independence	216
It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.	Death	217
Tears are the silent language of grief.	Sympathy	218
The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.	Work	219
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.	Funny	220
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.	Men	221
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.		222
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.	Faith, Power	223
It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.		224
Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.	Alone	225
I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.		226
Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.	Men	301
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.	Gardening, Work	302
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.	Religion	303
The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.	Power, Religion	304
What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.	Age	305
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.	Patriotism	306
Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.	Chance	307
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.		308
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.	Faith	309
The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.		310
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.	Legal	311
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.		312
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.	Art, Government, Money	313
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.		314
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.		315
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.	Home	316
The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.	Death, Fear	317
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.	Nature	318
We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.		319
He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.		320
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.	Friendship, Marriage	321
Nature has always had more force than education.	Education, Nature	322
The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.		323
The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.		324
The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.		325
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.		326
Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.	Women	401
We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.		402
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.		403
Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal.		404
To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.		405
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.		406
To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.	Respect, Truth	407
The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.		408
In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.		409
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.		410
It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.		411
God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.		412
When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit money when there is no good money.		413
I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.		414
We are rarely proud when we are alone.	Alone	415
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.	Imagination, Love	416
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.		417
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.		418
Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.		419
He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.	Sad	420
The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it.		421
The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.		422
Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.		423
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.		424
Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.		425
He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.	Age	426
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.		501
What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.		502
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.		503
The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.		504
The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.		505
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.		506
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.		507
Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.		508
Use, do not abuse... neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.		509
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.	Sad	510
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.	Poetry	511
Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.		512
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.		513
We cannot wish for that we know not.		514
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.	Famous	515
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.		516
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.		517
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.		518
History should be written as philosophy.		519
Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.	Alone	520
Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.		521
I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.		522
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.		523
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.		524
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.		525
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.		526
The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.		601
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.		602
He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.		603
History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.		604
In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.		605
The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.		606
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.		607
Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.		608
Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.	Religion	609
Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.		610
Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.		611
Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.		612
The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.		613
Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.	Marriage	614
All styles are good except the tiresome kind.		615
Society therefore is an ancient as the world.		616
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.		617
My life is a struggle.		618
Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.		619
Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.		620

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