Top 716 Quotes & Sayings by Voltaire - Page 4

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.

No opinion is worth burning your neighbor for.

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.

Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government?

What is history? The lie that everyone agrees on.

A yawn may not be polite, but at least it is an honest opinion.

Writing is the painting of the voice.

Dare to think for yourself.

Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value - zero.

Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.

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.

Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed.

Present opportunities are not to be neglected; they rarely visit us twice.

Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.

The biggest reward for a thing well done is to have done it.

Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.

Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

God created sex. Priests created marriage.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares absurd, beware, lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life.

A long dispute means both parties are wrong.

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. Tecumseh Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart.

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.

What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them.

Which is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more deadly; for atheism inspires no bloody passion whereas fanaticism does; atheism is opposed to crime and fanaticism causes crimes to be committed.

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.

Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it.

The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force.

Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor.

War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not color his crime with the pretext of justice.

There is no such thing as an accident. What we call by that name is the effect of some cause which we do not see.

What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him

One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.

To really enjoy pleasures, you must know how to leave them.

Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.

If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.

It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.

The more you know, the less sure you are.

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

Earth is an insane asylum, to which the other planets deport their lunatics.

The man who says to me, "Believe as I do, or God will damn you," will presently say, "Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you."

He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.

The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks.

There can be no happiness without good health

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

Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them

May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.

God created woman to tame man.

The more he became truly wise, the more he distrusted everything he knew.

If mankind were born tomorrow it would divide into groups; each would scramble to invent their one and only god, and set about butchering each-other.

Time is man's most precious asset. All men neglect it; all regret the loss of it; nothing can be done without it.

Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.

Among the illusions which have invested our civilization is an absolute belief that the solutions to our problems must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise... The reality is that our problems are largely the product of that application.

If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other’s throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace