Writer · French · 1694 – 1778 · 169 quotes
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.
Voltaire
Writer · French · 1694 – 1778
The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.
Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.
We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.
Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
Injustice in the end produces independence.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.
Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal.
It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.
The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.
Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.
Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
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.
Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.
All styles are good except the tiresome kind.
To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
Tears are the silent language of grief.
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
Business is the salt of life.
The ear is the avenue to the heart.
To hold a pen is to be at war.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
We are rarely proud when we are alone.
