Famous quotes by »

Voltaire

French writer who was the embodiment of 18th century Enlightenment (1694-1778)

Update this biography »
Complete biography of Voltaire »

1 fan

Sort by:PopularityA - Z

England has forty-two religions and only two sauces.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less in human beings of whom they know nothing.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

I have lost the half of myself - a soul for which mine was made.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman nor an Empire.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Canada: A few acres of snow.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Regimen is superior to medicine.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

It is forbidden to kill therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

A witty saying proves nothing.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Common sense is not so common.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The way to become boring is to say everything.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

God created sex. Priests created marriage.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

...the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The secret of being boring is to say everything.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

'That is indisputable,' was the answer, 'but in this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.'

– Voltaire

Rate it:

...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Self-love is the instrument of our preservation.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of the citizens to give to the other.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

You despise books you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

God is always on the side of the big battalions.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life that he had wasted his time. It must be admitted that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men that the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship towers considerably above him who imagined innate ideas.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Once the people begin to reason, all is lost.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Truth is a fruit which should not be plucked until it is ripe.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

It is new fancy rathert than taste which produces so many new fashions.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Love truth, and pardon error.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Prejudice is opinion without judgement.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were of course exterminated.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics... We repeat, there was far more imagination in the head of Archimedes than in that of Homer.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

This poem will never reach its destination.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

We are all full of weakness and errors, let us mutually pardon each other our follies it is the first law of nature.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

We are rarely proud when we are alone.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

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

Rate it:

When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Your book is dedicated by the soundest reason. You had better get out of France as quickly as you can.

– Voltaire

Rate it:

Share your thoughts on Voltaire's quotes with the community:

0 Comments

Notify me of new comments via email.

Quote of the Day Today's Quote | Archive

Would you like us to send you a FREE inspiring quote delivered to your inbox daily?

Citation

Use the citation below to add this author page to your bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"Voltaire Quotes." Quotes.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 28 Jan. 2025. <https://www.quotes.net/authors/Voltaire+Quotes>.

Missing a quote of Voltaire?

Know another good quote of Voltaire? Don't keep it to yourself!

The Web's Largest Resource for

Famous Quotes & Sayings

A Member Of The STANDS4 Network

Our favorite collection of

Famous Authors

Benjamin Franklin
1706 - 1790
Galileo Galilei
1564 - 1642
Jane Austen
1775 - 1817
Martin Luther King, Jr.
1929 - 1968
Ernest Hemingway
1899 - 1961
Marilyn Monroe
1926 - 1962
Sigmund Freud
1856 - 1939

Browse Quotes.net

#A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Random New Quotes

Quiz

Are you a quotes master?

In which movie does this quote appear: "Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane." ?

A Die Hard

B Blues Brothers

C Mission: Impossible

D Shawshank Redemption