Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

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

A woman can keep one secret – the secret of her age
—Voltaire
Topics: Secrets

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
—Voltaire
Topics: Religion, God

Pleasure has its time; so too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation.
—Voltaire
Topics: Pleasure

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
—Voltaire
Topics: Woman

Tears are the silent language of grief.
—Voltaire
Topics: Loss, Grief, One liners, Tears, Crying

The superfluous is very necessary.
—Voltaire
Topics: Necessity

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.
—Voltaire
Topics: Government, Politics

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
—Voltaire
Topics: Government

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.
—Voltaire
Topics: Angels

My prayer to God is a very short one: “O Lord, make my enemies look ridiculous!” God has granted it.
—Voltaire
Topics: Prayer

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.
—Voltaire
Topics: Reason

The best is the enemy of the good.
—Voltaire
Topics: Excellence

The opportunity to do mischief is found a hundred times a day, and that of doing good once a year.
—Voltaire

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
—Voltaire

Let us work without theorizing, ‘Tis the only way to make life endurable.
—Voltaire
Topics: Assumptions, Theory

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
—Voltaire
Topics: Pride

The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.
—Voltaire
Topics: Stupidity

England has 42 religions and only two sauces.
—Voltaire
Topics: Britain

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
—Voltaire
Topics: Conformity, Originality

Philosophers never stood in need of Homer or the Pharisees to be convinced that everything is done by immutable laws; that everything is settled; that everything is the necessary effect of some previous cause.
—Voltaire
Topics: Destiny

Satire lies about men of letters during their lives, and eulogy after their death.
—Voltaire

Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.
—Voltaire
Topics: Boredom, Work, Vice

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.
—Voltaire

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
—Voltaire
Topics: Role models

It is new fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions.
—Voltaire
Topics: Fashion

Books rule the world, or at least those nations which have a written language; the others do not matter.
—Voltaire

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
—Voltaire
Topics: Singing

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

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.
—Voltaire
Topics: Law, Laws

I envy animals for two things – their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them.
—Voltaire
Topics: Envy

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