Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
—Voltaire
Topics: Singing
It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
—Voltaire
Topics: Patriotism
I am a little deaf, a little blind, a little impotent, and on top of this are two or three abominable infirmities, but nothing destroys my hope.
—Voltaire
Topics: Hope, Attitude
The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.
—Voltaire
Topics: Solitude
History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.
—Voltaire
Topics: One liners, History
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity
—Voltaire
Topics: Eating
The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic.
—Voltaire
Topics: Fanaticism
All styles are good except the boring kind.
—Voltaire
Happiness grows in our own gardens, and it is not to be picked up in strangers garden.
—Voltaire
The first who was king was a fortunate soldier: Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
—Voltaire
Topics: Soldiers, Ancestors
Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
—Voltaire
Topics: Adversity, Attitude, Bores, Life, Boredom
Once the people begin to reason, all is lost
—Voltaire
Topics: Reason
It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
—Voltaire
Topics: Freedom
Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.
—Voltaire
Topics: Superstition
I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age.
—Voltaire
Topics: Doctors, Medicine
Nothing is so common as to imitate one’s enemies, and to use their weapons.
—Voltaire
Topics: Enemy
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
—Voltaire
Topics: Thinking
One merit of poetry few persons will deny; it says more, and in fewer words, than prose.
—Voltaire
Topics: Poetry
The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing.
—Voltaire
Topics: Punishment
History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.
—Voltaire
Topics: Historians, History
Work banishes those three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty.
—Voltaire
Topics: Work, Boredom
Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world. If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities. Superstition, born of paganism and adopted by Judaism, invested the Christian Church from earliest times. All the fathers of the Church, without exception, believed in the power of magic. The Church always condemned magic, but she always believed in it: she did not excommunicate sorcerers as madmen who were mistaken, but as men who were really in communication with the devil. Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
—Voltaire
Prejudices are the reason of fools.
—Voltaire
Topics: Prejudice
The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
—Voltaire
Topics: Pride
Chance is a word devoid of sense, nothing can exist without a cause.
—Voltaire
Topics: Chance, Fortune, Fate, Luck
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
—Voltaire
Topics: Stupidity, Courtesy, Manners
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.
—Voltaire
Topics: Poetry
Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.
—Voltaire
Topics: Doubt
When one man speaks to another man who doesn’t understand him, and when the man who’s speaking no longer understands, it’s metaphysics.
—Voltaire
Topics: Understanding
In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.
—Voltaire
Topics: News
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
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Octave Mirbeau French Author
Jean-Jacques Rousseau French Philosopher