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Voltaire Quotes | Quotes said by Voltaire

  • Voltaire Quote #1

    ?Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.

  • Voltaire Quote #2

    –Amiguito –le dijo el orador– ¿crees que el Papa es el anticristo?
    –Nunca lo había oído –respondió Cándido–; pero séalo o no, yo no tengo pan que comer.
    –Ni lo mereces –replicó el otro–; anda, bribón, anda, miserable, y que no te vuelva a ver en mi vida.
    Se asomó en esto a la ventana la mujer del ministro, y viendo a uno que dudaba de que el Papa fuera el anticristo, le tiró a la cabeza un vaso lleno de… ¡Oh, cielos, a qué excesos se entregan las damas por celo religioso!

  • Voltaire Quote #3

    A fondness for roving, for making a name for themselves in their onw country, and for boasting of what they had seen in their travels, was so strong in our two wanderers, that they resolved to be no longer happy; and demanded permission of the king to leave the country.

  • Voltaire Quote #4

    A oportunidade de fazer o mal aparece cem vezes por dia e a de fazer bem, uma vez por ano, diz Zoroastro.

  • Voltaire Quote #5

    A true god surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough... [or inspired] books, filled with contradictions, madness, and horror.

  • Voltaire Quote #6

    A witty saying proves nothing.

  • Voltaire Quote #7

    All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.

  • Voltaire Quote #8

    All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.

  • Voltaire Quote #9

    All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers.

  • Voltaire Quote #10

    All our ancient history, as one of our wits remarked, is no more than accepted fiction.

  • Voltaire Quote #11

    All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

  • Voltaire Quote #12

    An opportunity fordoing an injury happens a hundred times a day, hut for doing good not once a year, says Zoroaster.

  • Voltaire Quote #13

    And to every man has been assigned a good and an evil angel; one assisting him and the other annoying him, from his cradle to his coffin.

  • Voltaire Quote #14

    Answer me, you who believe that animals are only machines. Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all?

  • Voltaire Quote #15

    At a great distance appeared with the same pomp the sheep of Thebes, the dog of Bubastis, the cat of Phoebe, the crocodile of Arsinoe, the goat of Mendes, and all the inferior gods of Egypt, who came to pay homage to the great ox, to the mighty Apis, as powerful as Isis, Osiris, and Horus, united together.

    In the midst of the demi-gods, forty priests carried an enormous basket, filled with sacred onions. These were, it is true, gods, but they resembled onions very much.

    (The White Bull)

  • Voltaire Quote #16

    Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.

  • Voltaire Quote #17

    Better is the enemy of good.

  • Voltaire Quote #18

    But for what purpose was the earth formed? asked Candide. To drive us mad, replied Martin.

  • Voltaire Quote #19

    But how conceive a God supremely good/ Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves,/ Yet scatters evil with as large a hand?

    [Written after an earthquake in Lisbon killed over 15,000 people]

  • Voltaire Quote #20

    But there must be some pleasure in condemning everything--in perceiving faults where others think they see beauties.'
    'You mean there is pleasure in having no pleasure.

  • Voltaire Quote #21

    By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.

  • Voltaire Quote #22

    By what incomprehensible mechanism are our organs held in subjection to sentiment and thought? How is it that a single melancholy idea shall disturb the whole course of the blood; and that the blood should in turn communicate irregularities to the human understanding? What is that unknown fluid which certainly exists and which, quicker and more active than light, flies in less than the twinkling of an eye into all the channels of life,—produces sensations, memory, joy or grief, reason or frenzy,—recalls with horror what we would choose to forget; and renders a thinking animal, either a subject of admiration, or an object of pity and compassion?

  • Voltaire Quote #23

    Cela est bien, repondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.

  • Voltaire Quote #24

    Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

  • Voltaire Quote #25

    Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.

    [In a letter to Frederick the Great]

  • Voltaire Quote #26

    Common sense is not so common.

  • Voltaire Quote #27

    Da ich nun einmal nicht imstande war, die Menschen vernünftiger zu machen, war ich lieber fern von ihnen glücklich.

  • Voltaire Quote #28

    Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.

  • Voltaire Quote #29

    Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.

  • Voltaire Quote #30

    Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

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