Voltaire - Soul Quotes

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It takes twenty years to bring man from the state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in his first infancy, to the point when his reason begins to dawn. It has taken thirty centuries to know his structure; it would take eternity to know something of his soul: it takes but an instant to kill him.

Voltaire
Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.

Voltaire
It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.

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

Voltaire
My soul is the mirror of the universe, and my body is its frame

Voltaire
Why do we dream in our sleep if we have no soul? and, if we have one, how is it that dreams are so incoherent and extravagant?

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

Voltaire
Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.

Voltaire
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.

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
It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made.

Voltaire
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.

Voltaire