Voltaire Quotes

351 Sourced Quotes

Clever tyrants are never punished.

Voltaire
What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them.

Voltaire
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

Voltaire
Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.

Voltaire
It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.

Voltaire
In this best of all possible worlds... everything is for the best.

Voltaire
Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Voltaire
Work keeps away those three great evils: boredom, vice, and poverty.

Voltaire
Work keeps us from three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty.

Voltaire
"Well! sage Evhemere, what have you seen in all your travels?" "Follies!"

Voltaire
The English plays are like their English puddings: nobody has any taste for them but themselves.

Voltaire
It is strange that thought should depend upon the stomach, and still that men with the best stomachs are not always the best thinkers.

Voltaire
If one must serve, I hold it better to serve a well-bred lion, who is naturally stronger than I am, than two hundred rats of my own breed.

Voltaire
The history of the world's great leaders is often the story of human folly.

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

Voltaire
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.

Voltaire
People sometimes say: "Common sense is quite rare."

Voltaire
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 experienced in a town when it is under siege.

Voltaire
If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other's throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace

Voltaire
Would you console yourself when you die for parting from those with whom you liked to live? Think that they will be soon consoled for your death.

Voltaire
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.

Voltaire
A people that sells its own children is more condemnable than the buyer; this commerce demonstrates our superiority; he who gives himself a master was born to have one.

Voltaire
I cannot guess what may be the fate of Quakerism in America; but I perceive it loses ground daily in England. In all countries, where the established religion is of a mild and tolerating nature, it will at length swallow up all the rest.

Voltaire
We can not always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

Voltaire
In this country [England] it is useful from time to time to kill one admiral in order to encourage the others.

Voltaire
Love is of all the passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the body.

Voltaire
Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.

Voltaire
I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste.

Voltaire
One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.

Voltaire
Work is often the father of pleasure; I pity the man overwhelmed with the weight of his own leisure.

Voltaire