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Voltaire Quotes and Quotations


The best is the enemy of the good.
I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.
Ask a toad what is beauty? ... a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat mouth, a yellow belly and a brown back.
- Voltaire | Beauty Quotes
The secret of boring people lies in telling them everything.
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
Fear succeeds crime - it is its punishment.
England has forty-two religions and only two sauces.
The superfluous is very necessary.
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
- Voltaire | God Quotes
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
- Voltaire | God Quotes
If God made us in his image, we have certainly returned the compliment.
- Voltaire | God Quotes
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
- Voltaire | Heredity Quotes
History is just the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes.
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Life Quotes
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
- Voltaire | Money Quotes
Men argue, nature acts.
- Voltaire | Nature Quotes
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
- Voltaire | Opinion Quotes
The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. 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.
- Voltaire | Originality Quotes
We offer up prayers to God only because we have made Him after our own image. We treat Him like a Pasha, or a Sultan, who is capable of being exasperated and appeased.
- Voltaire | Prayer Quotes
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is.
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed.
- Voltaire | Religion Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Ruin Quotes
Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it.
- Voltaire | Success Quotes
Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.
There are truths that are not for all men, nor for all times.
- Voltaire | Truth Quotes
Work banishes those three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty.
- Voltaire | Work Quotes
Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.
- Voltaire | Happiness Quotes
Better is the enemy of the good.
- Voltaire | Acceptance Quotes
Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them.
- Voltaire | Acceptance Quotes
The most beautiful of all emblems is that of God, whom Timaeus of Locris describes under the image of "A circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
- Voltaire | God Quotes
Faith is believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart to the finest verses chanted by the wicked.
- Voltaire | Prayer Quotes
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
- Voltaire | Role Models Quotes
Better is the enemy of the good.
Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.
- Voltaire | Goals Quotes
Fear follows crime, and is its punishment.
- Voltaire | Fear Quotes
Fear could never make a virtue.
Doubt is not a pleasant state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.
Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.
Luck is a word devoid of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
- Voltaire | Luck Quotes
The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
- Voltaire | Events Quotes
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
- Voltaire | Life Quotes
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
- Voltaire | Health Quotes
Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
- Voltaire | Ancestry Quotes
The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.
- Voltaire | Beginning Quotes
All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.
- Voltaire | Books Quotes
Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life.
- Voltaire | Care Quotes
If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero.
- Voltaire | Censorship Quotes
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream That this watch exists and has no watchmaker.
- Voltaire | Creation Quotes
My prayer to God is a very short one "Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous!" God has granted it.
- Voltaire | Enemy Quotes
Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
- Voltaire | England Quotes
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
- Voltaire | Experience Quotes
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
- Voltaire | Fame Quotes
He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.
- Voltaire | Fools Quotes
If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
- Voltaire | Glory Quotes
The fate of a nation has often depended on the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.
- Voltaire | Health Quotes
A good imitation is the most perfect originality.
- Voltaire | Imitation Quotes
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 | Medicine Quotes
Nature has always had more force than education.
- Voltaire | Nature Quotes
When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
- Voltaire | News Quotes
The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.
- Voltaire | Opportunity Quotes
The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important objects of philosophy.
- Voltaire | Philosophy Quotes
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
- Voltaire | Poetry Quotes
The infinitely little have pride infinitely great.
- Voltaire | Pride Quotes
The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing.
- Voltaire | Punishment Quotes
Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all: and others to persecute those who do reason.
- Voltaire | Reason Quotes
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
- Voltaire | Speech Quotes
I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.
- Voltaire | Superstition Quotes
The secret of being tiresome is in telling everything.
- Voltaire | Talk Quotes
Tears are the silent language of grief.
- Voltaire | Tears Quotes
You (Pindar) who possessed the talent of speaking much without saying anything.
- Voltaire | Word Quotes
Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
- Voltaire | World Quotes
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
We never live, but we are always in the expectation of living.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes
I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.
- Voltaire | Never Quotes


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I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.
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