Voltaire Quotes

351 Sourced Quotes

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

Voltaire
If there are atheists, who is to be blamed if not the mercenary tyrants of souls who, in revolting us against their swindles, compel some feeble spirits to deny the God whom these monsters dishonour?

Voltaire
Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them.

Voltaire
But nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor.

Voltaire
In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

Voltaire
The geometrician makes a hundred thousand curved lines pass between a circle and a right line that touches it, when, in reality, there is not room for a straw to pass there.

Voltaire
All the reasoning of man is not worth one sentiment of woman.

Voltaire
This world is but a lottery of goods, of ranks, of dignities, of rights.

Voltaire
The monster, fanaticism, still exists, and whoever seeks after truth will run the risk of being persecuted.

Voltaire
When Newton worked, with the bandage removed from his eyes, on his mathematics, his sight pierced to the utmost limits of nature.

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
A circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such sublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a quadrant and a little arithmetic.

Voltaire
He who is involved in ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for reality, and his own imagination for prophesy, is a fanatical novice of great hope and promise, and will soon advance to the higher stage and kill men for the love of God.

Voltaire
Heroes of physics, Argonauts of our time
Who leaped the mountains, who crossed the seas...
You have confirmed in uncomfortable places
What Newton knew without leaving his study.

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
What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason.

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

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
History is no more than the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes.

Voltaire
Etymology is a science where vowels count for nothing and consonants for very little.

Voltaire
One must take a stand, but one should not take it at random. It is therefore necessary to our weak and blind human nature, always subject to error, to study probability with as much care as we learn arithmetic and geometry.

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

Voltaire
All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers.

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
Thought depends largely on the stomach. In spite of this, those with the best stomachs are not always the best thinkers.

Voltaire