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
Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason.
—Voltaire
Topics: Reason
In the midst of all the doubts which we have discussed for four thousand years in for thousand ways, the safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
—Voltaire
Topics: Joy
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all occasions.
—Voltaire
Topics: Truth
Satire lies about men of letters during their lives, and eulogy after their death.
—Voltaire
The multitude are ruled by prejudices.
—Voltaire
Topics: Prejudice
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
Fear follows crime, and is its punishment.
—Voltaire
Topics: Fear, Crime
There are moral as well as physical assassinations.
—Voltaire
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
—Voltaire
Topics: Books
Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.
—Voltaire
Topics: Ideas
Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.
—Voltaire
It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
—Voltaire
Topics: Freedom
The public is a ferocious beast. One must either chain it up or flee from it.
—Voltaire
Topics: People
They use thought only to justify their injustices, and speech only to disguise their thoughts.
—Voltaire
Topics: Thought, Thoughts
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
It is new fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions.
—Voltaire
Topics: Fashion
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
Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel, that when we find one who is only weak, we are happy.
—Voltaire
Topics: Weakness
Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.
—Voltaire
Topics: Doubt
My life is a battle.
—Voltaire
Topics: Nature, Life
Happiness grows in our own gardens, and it is not to be picked up in strangers garden.
—Voltaire
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.
—Voltaire
Topics: Creation
The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.
—Voltaire
Topics: Goodness, Character
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
—Voltaire
Topics: Beauty
Prejudices are what rule the vulgar crowd.
—Voltaire
Topics: Prejudice
This poem will never reach its destination. On Rousseau’s Ode To Posterity
—Voltaire
Topics: Poetry
Pleasure has its time; so too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation.
—Voltaire
Topics: Pleasure
One merit of poetry few persons will deny; it says more, and in fewer words, than prose.
—Voltaire
Topics: Poetry
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
—Voltaire
Topics: Government
Prejudice is the reason of fools.
—Voltaire
Topics: Prejudice
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Denis Diderot French Philosopher, Writer
Victor Hugo French Novelist
Jean-Paul Sartre French Philosopher
Jean Cocteau French Poet, Artist
Simone de Beauvoir French Philosopher
Michel Foucault French Philosopher
Anatole France French Novelist
Albert Camus Algerian-born French Philosopher
Octave Mirbeau French Author
Jean-Jacques Rousseau French Philosopher