Inspirational Quotes by Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

Inspirational Quotations 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.)

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To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
—Voltaire
Topics: Manners

A witty saying proves nothing.
—Voltaire
Topics: Yin, Speech, Conversation

It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
—Voltaire
Topics: Freedom

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

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

Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
—Voltaire
Topics: Family

Common sense is anything but common.
—Voltaire

The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing.
—Voltaire
Topics: Punishment

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

Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
—Voltaire
Topics: World

One of the chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.
—Voltaire
Topics: Cowardice

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

Happiness grows in our own gardens, and it is not to be picked up in strangers garden.
—Voltaire

Weakness on both sides is the motto of all quarrels.
—Voltaire
Topics: Argument

Exaggeration is the inseparable companion of greatness.
—Voltaire

History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction. The history of man’s ideas is nothing more than the chronicle of human error.
—Voltaire
Topics: History

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.
—Voltaire
Topics: Speech

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

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all occasions.
—Voltaire
Topics: Truth

History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.
—Voltaire
Topics: One liners, History

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

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
—Voltaire
Topics: Uncertainty, Thinking

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
—Voltaire

The richest endowments of the mind are temperance, prudence, and fortitude. Prudence is a universal virtue, which enters into the composition of all the rest; and where she is not, fortitude loses its name and nature.
—Voltaire

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
—Voltaire
Topics: Crime, History

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
—Voltaire
Topics: Thinking

Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
—Voltaire

All is for the best in the best of the possible worlds.
—Voltaire
Topics: Best

Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.
—Voltaire
Topics: Goals, Pleasure, Happiness, Aspirations

The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good, are the two most important aims of philosophy.
—Voltaire
Topics: Science, Philosophy

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
—Voltaire
Topics: Appreciation

He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
—Voltaire
Topics: Ignorance, Questions

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

What a heavy burden is a name that has too soon become famous.
—Voltaire
Topics: Fame

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: Bravery, Heroes

Prejudices are what rule the vulgar crowd.
—Voltaire
Topics: Prejudice

We cannot always oblige, but we can always speak obligingly.
—Voltaire
Topics: Manners

I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one.
—Voltaire
Topics: Lawyers

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