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Voltaire Quotes - Page 17

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

A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.

A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.

Clever, Men, Fool

Shakespeare is a drunken savage with some imagination whose plays please only in London and Canada.

Play, Imagination, Savages

The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.

Law, Tyrants, Sovereign

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.2014, e-artnow

Nature has always had more force than education.

Education, Force

I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. It does not behoove us, who were only savages and barbarians when these Indians and Chinese peoples were civilized and learned, to dispute their antiquity.

Astrology, Etc, Astronomy

"Sanskrit Reader 1: A Reader in Sanskrit Literature". Book by Heiko Kretschmer, 2015.

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

Gossip, Waiting, News

Let us read, and let us dance — these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

Dance, Reading, Two

"The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version". Volume 6,

The way to be a bore is to say everything.

Boredom, Way, Bores

'Sur la Nature de l'Homme' v.174-5 in 'Sept Discours en vers sur l'homme'

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.

Ignorance, Knowledge, Would Be

To succeed in chaining the multitude, you must seem to wear the same fetters.

Succeed, Multitudes, Fetters

Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.147, Penguin

Fear could never make virtue.

Fear, Virtue

Voltaire (1824). “A Philosophical Dictionary: From the French”, p.122

If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.

Philosophy, Eels, Flour

Voltaire (1919). “Voltaire in His Letters: Being a Selection from His Correspondence”

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.

Angel, Air, Void

Voltaire (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of Voltaire (Illustrated)”, p.2868, Delphi Classics

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

Government, Democracy, Form

It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.

Music, Impossible, Translate

It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes.

Sight, Earthquakes, Secret

Francois Voltaire (1977). “The Portable Voltaire”, p.164, Penguin

Prejudice is opinion without judgement.

Book, Beer, Judgement

In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten.

Men, Hammers, Anvils

Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties.

Faults, Language, Increase

We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.

Knowing, House, Looks

Voltaire's Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750),

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

Funny, Humor, Law

The best is the enemy of the good.

Inspirational, Military, Learning

Letter to Duc de Richelieu, 18 June 1744. Although this saying is now associated with Voltaire, he is obviously quoting an Italian proverb here. The French form, which he used later, is Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.

It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice.

Animal, Law, Feet

Voltaire (2007). “The Complete Romances of Voltaire”, p.428, Wildside Press LLC

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

Peace, Cutting, Two

Voltaire (2016). “Treatise on Toleration”, p.22, Penguin UK

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Truth, Affection, Martyrdom

Letter to Jean le Rond d'Alembert, February 08, 1776.

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