Voltaire Quotes | GloryQuotes

Voltaire Quotes About Life

The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

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.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Voltaire Quotes About Spiritual

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.

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.

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

More Quotes by Voltaire

In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.

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

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

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

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself.

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

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.

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

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

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

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

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.

The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

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

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

Browse 169 quotes attributed to Voltaire, listed in the source data as a French Writer, organized around themes such as Life, Spiritual, Nature. Use the topic links to explore similar quotes, or browse the full author collection in one place.