Voltaire Quotes

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Voltaire Quotes & Sayings


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All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
- Voltaire


Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
- Voltaire


Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
- Voltaire


Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
- Voltaire


All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.
- Voltaire


Clever tyrants are never punished.
- Voltaire


God is always on the side of the big battalions.
- Voltaire


Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
- Voltaire


Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
- Voltaire


Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter.
- Voltaire


An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.
- Voltaire


Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
- Voltaire


Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
- Voltaire


Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
- Voltaire


All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
- Voltaire


Prejudice is opinion without judgement.
- Voltaire


Business is the salt of life.
- Voltaire


Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
- Voltaire


To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
- Voltaire


All styles are good except the tiresome kind.
- Voltaire


The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
- Voltaire


Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
- Voltaire


It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
- Voltaire


Common sense is not so common.
- Voltaire


Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
- Voltaire


Better is the enemy of good.
- Voltaire


Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
- Voltaire


Love truth, and pardon error.
- Voltaire


Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.
- Voltaire


The secret of being boring is to say everything.
- Voltaire


Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
- Voltaire


It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
- Voltaire


Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
- Voltaire


History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.
- Voltaire


God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
- Voltaire


Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
- Voltaire


Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
- Voltaire


He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.
- Voltaire


He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
- Voltaire


Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
- Voltaire


He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
- Voltaire


Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.
- Voltaire


Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.
- Voltaire


Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
- Voltaire


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


There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.
- Voltaire


God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
- Voltaire


The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.
- Voltaire


He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
- Voltaire


When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
- Voltaire


What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
- Voltaire


God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
- Voltaire


The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.
- Voltaire


There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
- Voltaire


The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
- Voltaire


The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
- Voltaire


We cannot wish for that we know not.
- Voltaire


Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.
- Voltaire


Tears are the silent language of grief.
- Voltaire


The ear is the avenue to the heart.
- Voltaire


Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.
- Voltaire


Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
- Voltaire


My life is a struggle.
- Voltaire


Nature has always had more force than education.
- Voltaire


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