Famous Quotes

Quotes by Voltaire

• It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
• 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.
• It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.
• It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
• It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
• It is vain for the coward to flee death follows close behind it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
• Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.
• 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.
• 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.
• Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
• Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
• Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
• Nature has always had more force than education.
• Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.
• Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
• Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
• Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
• One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
• One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
• Perfection is attained by slow degrees it requires the hand of time.
• Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
• Society therefore is an ancient as the world.
• Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.
• Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
• Tears are the silent language of grief.
• The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.
• The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.
• The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
• The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
• The best is the enemy of the good.
• The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.
• 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.
• The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
• The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
• 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.
• 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.
• The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.
• The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
• The superfluous, a very necessary thing.