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Voltaire Quotes - Page 10

All Quotes Abuse Acceptance Adversity Age Appreciation Art Atheism Atheist Beauty Beer Belief Boredom Certainty Character Children Christianity Church Common Sense Cooking Country Courage Crime Death Democracy Destiny Devil Doubt Dying Earth Eating Education Equality Evil Excellence Exercise Failure Faith Fame Fate Fear Feelings Food Freedom Friendship Funny Genius Giving God Gossip Grace Greatness Grief Happiness Hate Health Heart Heaven Hell History Human Nature Humanity Ignorance Imagination Independence Injustice Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Inspiring Justice Killing Knowledge Language Learning Liberty Life Loss Love Lying Madness Mankind Marriage Math Metaphysics Military Money Morality Motivational Nature Optimism Originality Passion Peace Perfection Philosophy Pleasure Poetry Politics Positive Thinking Prayer Prejudice Pride Progress Property Purpose Reading Reality Religion Reputation Revolution Risk Running Science Sin Sleep Soul Spirituality Stupidity Style Time Today Tolerance Tragedy Truth Virtue War Weakness Wine Wisdom Wit Work Writing Yoga

Prejudice is an opinion without judgment.

Prejudice is an opinion without judgment.

Justice, Prejudice, Opinion

Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.120, Penguin

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

Dad, Children, Father

Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.

War, Mean, Cutting

Voltaire (1824). “A Philosophical Dictionary: From the French”, p.43

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Learning, Knowledge, Men

"Le Chapon et la Poularde (1763)". Dialogue by Voltaire, Dialogue XIV. " Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition", 1919.

The Jews have always been waiting for a Messiah, but their Messiah is for them only, not for us, a Messiah ho will give them mastery over the Christians.

Christian, Religious, Giving

Philosopher: A lover of wisdom, which is to say, Truth.

Love, Wisdom, Philosopher

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

Running, Truth, Risk

Voltaire (2007). “The Complete Romances of Voltaire”, p.460, Wildside Press LLC

Mortals are equal; their mask differs.

Equality, Mask, Equal

I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?' That is a hard question,' said Candide.

Running, Cutting, Pirate

I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste.

Taste, Suits, Candide

Voltaire (1956). “Candide: or, Optimism”

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.

Believe, Intelligent, Mind

Voltaire, John G. Gorton (1824). “A Philosophical Dictionary”, p.155

You will notice that in all disputes between Christians since the birth of the Church, Rome has always favored the doctrine which most completely subjugated the human mind and annihilated reason.

Christian, Rome, Mind

A good action is preferable to an argument.

Action, Argument, Good Actions

Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.126, Penguin

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.

Birthday, Resurrection, Rebirth

Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

Funny, Life, Writing

"Timeline: a history of free speech" by David Smith, Luc Torres, www.theguardian.com. February 5, 2006.

We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth.

Death, Respect, Dying

Voltaire's 'etter to M. de Grenonville, 1719.

We only half live when we only half think.

Thinking, Half

Villains are undone by what is worst in them, heroes by what is best.

Hero, Villain, Undone

For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm.

Christian, Years, Done

Voltaire, Frederick II (King of Prussia) (1927). “Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great”

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

History, Crime, Dump

L'Ingenu ch. 10 (1767) See Gibbon 4

Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them.

Independent, Greatness, Men

Voltaire (2016). “Voltaire – The Philosophical Works: Treatise On Tolerance, Philosophical Dictionary, Candide, Letters on England, Plato’s Dream, Dialogues, The Study of Nature, Ancient Faith and Fable, Zadig…: From the French writer, historian and philosopher, famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion and freedom of expression”, p.1850, e-artnow

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

Drinking, Food, Godly

Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft; but we do not steal that which is given to us.

Evil, Infidelity, Adultery

Voltaire (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of Voltaire (Illustrated)”, p.2779, Delphi Classics

He who doesn't have the spirit of his time, has all its misery.

Spirit, Spirituality, Misery

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.

Art, Believe, Philosophical

Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.121, Penguin

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