Top 716 Quotes & Sayings by Voltaire - Page 5

Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.

Every one should be his own physician. We ought to assist, and not to force nature. Eat with moderation...Nothing is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can procure digestion? Exercise. What will recruit strength? Sleep.

To achieve a goal, a dream, a wish, you must plan it out for success!

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.

History is the study of the world's crime

I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.

One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence.

It is not the answers you give, but the questions you ask.

Being a bird ain't all about flying and shitting from high places.

When truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to rise. There never has been a dispute as to whether there is daylight at noon.

The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous.

Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.

There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them.

A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble.

To announce truths is an infallible receipt for being persecuted.

Language is a very difficult thing to put into words.

One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact.

If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.

God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

It is the first law of friendship that it has to be cultivated. The second is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected.

Prejudices are what rule the vulgar crowd.

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

Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

Common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence.

I have been a hundred times on the point of killing myself, but still was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts. What can be more absurd than choosing to carry a burden that one really wants to throw to the ground? To detest, and yet to strive to preserve our existence? To caress the serpent that devours us, and hug him close to our bosoms till he has gnawed into our hearts?

The Jews are of all peoples the grosses, the most ferocious, the most fanatical, and the most absurd.

It is the poverty connected with our species which subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.

The wicked can have only accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends.

History never repeats itself. Man always does.

The Jews have always been waiting for a Messiah, but their Messiah is for them only, not for us, a Messiah ho will give them mastery over the Christians.

Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.

I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because there is nothing to be gained by him.

Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.

The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.

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

I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race.

Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances. It is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.

So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.

Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft; but we do not steal that which is given to us.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.

To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.

Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world.

Self love is the instrument of our preservation.

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.

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

History contains little beyond a list of people who have accommodate themselves with other people's property.

He who cannot shine by thought, seeks to bring himself into notice by a witticism.

To make a vow for life is to make oneself a slave.

Our character is composed of our ideas and our feelings: and, since it has been proved that we give ourselves neither feelings nor ideas, our character does not depend on us. If it did depend on us, there is nobody who would not be perfect. If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing

He who seeks truth should be of no country.

The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous.

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.

Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors.

Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities.

Men argue. Nature acts.

Persistence with patience and prayer pays with profits, prosperity and peace of mind.

Fanaticism is a monster that pretends to be the child of religion

Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.