François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778,) known by his pseudonym Voltaire, was the great French philosopher who towered over the Enlightenment of the 18th century as its guiding intellectual presence. His influence continued long after his death as a defining force in the American and French Revolutions.
Voltaire was a brilliant, acerbic, and prolific polemicist. He left behind some 15 million written words in every literary form—plays, poems, novels, letters, and essays. His subjects included philosophy, science, travel, religion, and civil liberties. By the time of his death, Voltaire’s astonishing literary output and his crafty media manipulation had made him the most famous writer in the world.
Born in a prosperous middle-class Parisian family and educated by the Paris Jesuits, Voltaire was opposed to the deceit, superstition, and fanaticism he saw in the Catholic Church and argued passionately for Deism. Even today, Voltaire’s opinions on religion, tolerance, and human rights seem remarkably contemporary and stimulating.
Voltaire regularly used his works to condemn intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day. His notable works are his philosophical novels, particularly Zadig ou la Destinée (1747; Zadig, or The Book of Fate) and Candide, ou l’Optimisme (1759.) His best-known work, Candide, one of French literature’s most enduring classics, follows the adventures of a young man, Candide, and his mentor, the philosopher Pangloss. This satirical short story is an extraordinary synthesis of Voltaire’s lifelong condemnation of falsity and hypocrisy; his targets include divine providence, lousy literature, extremist religion, and the vanity of kings and politicians.
Voltaire’s scientific works include Éléments de la philosophie de Newton (1738; The Elements of Newton’s Philosophy, 1738.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Voltaire
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
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
Topics: Retirement
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 great consolation in life is to say what one thinks.
—Voltaire
Topics: Honesty
Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
—Voltaire
Topics: World
Let us work without theorizing, ‘Tis the only way to make life endurable.
—Voltaire
Topics: Assumptions, Theory
Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
—Voltaire
Topics: Attitude
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
Topics: Sex
I hate women because they always know where things are.
—Voltaire
Topics: Women
A woman can keep one secret – the secret of her age
—Voltaire
Topics: Secrets
Life resembles the banquet of Damocles; the sword is ever suspended.
—Voltaire
Topics: Life
Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting.
—Voltaire
Topics: Freedom
That sovereign is a tyrant who knows no law but his own caprice.
—Voltaire
Topics: Tyranny
The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
—Voltaire
Topics: Pride
Pleasure has its time; so too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation.
—Voltaire
Topics: Pleasure
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
—Voltaire
Topics: Men, Wisdom
A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.
—Voltaire
Topics: Law, Laws
All pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were the serious short also.
—Voltaire
Topics: Speaking
One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.
—Voltaire
Topics: Coward, Cowardice
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
—Voltaire
Topics: Literature, Reading, Books
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.
—Voltaire
Topics: Trouble
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
—Voltaire
Topics: Language, Words
Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn’t illegal.
—Voltaire
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
—Voltaire
Topics: Government
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
—Voltaire
Topics: Woman
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
—Voltaire
Topics: Justice
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
—Voltaire
Topics: Money
Weakness on both sides is the motto of all quarrels.
—Voltaire
Topics: Argument
Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
—Voltaire
Topics: Family, Ancestry, Ancestors
Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.
—Voltaire
Topics: Medicine, Health, Doctors
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
Topics: Censorship
Once the people begin to reason, all is lost
—Voltaire
Topics: Reason
Only your friends steal your books.
—Voltaire
Topics: Books, Book
Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.
—Voltaire
Topics: Reason
The first who was king was a fortunate soldier: Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
—Voltaire
Topics: Soldiers, Ancestors
The best is the enemy of the good.
—Voltaire
Topics: Excellence
Love truth, and pardon error.
—Voltaire
Topics: Truth
To announce truths is an infallible receipt for being persecuted.
—Voltaire
Topics: Truth, Reason, Thought
I do not like heroes; they make too much noise in the world. The more radiant their glory, the more odious they are.
—Voltaire
Topics: Heroes, Bravery
I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one.
—Voltaire
Topics: Law, Lawyers
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