Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need. - Voltaire
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. - Voltaire
The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of the citizens to give to the other. - Voltaire
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid - one must also be polite. - Voltaire
Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace. - Voltaire
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. - Voltaire
I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it. - Voltaire
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books. - Voltaire
Fear follows crime and is its punishment. - Voltaire
Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read. - Voltaire
When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion. - Voltaire
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated."(Notebooks) - Voltaire
God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. - Voltaire
May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies. - Voltaire
Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers. - Voltaire
If we can't find something pleasant, we will at least find something new. - Voltaire
Perfect is the enemy of good. - Voltaire
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 cars in order to win the game. - Voltaire
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future. - Voltaire
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. - Voltaire
Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination. - Voltaire
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung. - Voltaire
This is no time to make new enemies. - Voltaire
Men argue. Nature acts. - Voltaire
Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law. - Voltaire
Quand celui à qui l'on parle ne comprend pas et celui qui parle ne se comprend pas, c'est de la métaphysiqueWhen he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics. - Voltaire
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. - Voltaire
All is for the best in the best of all possible ways. - Voltaire
Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter. - Voltaire
A oportunidade de fazer o mal aparece cem vezes por dia e a de fazer bem, uma vez por ano, diz Zoroastro. - Voltaire
Un habile homme dans les affaires est instruit, prudent et actif: si l'un de ces trois merites lui manque, il n'est point habile. - Voltaire
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. - Voltaire
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. - Voltaire
Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it. - Voltaire
Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies. - Voltaire
Regimen is superior to medicine. - Voltaire
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. - Voltaire
To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it. - Voltaire
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts. - Voltaire
It's a terrible thing, what we did, said Francis abruptly. I mean, this man was not Voltaire we killed. But still. It’s a shame. I feel bad about it. - Donna Tartt
Vous craignez les livres comme certaines bourgades ont craint les violons. Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. - Voltaire
Da ich nun einmal nicht imstande war, die Menschen vernünftiger zu machen, war ich lieber fern von ihnen glücklich. - Voltaire
...the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death. - Voltaire
Common sense is not so common. - Voltaire
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise. - Voltaire
The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him. - Voltaire
L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'être. - Voltaire
Tears are the silent language of grief. - Voltaire
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. - Voltaire
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination. - Voltaire
This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. - Voltaire
Voltaire expected that within fifty years of his lifetime there would not be one Bible in the world. His house is now a distribution centre for Bibles in many languages. - Corrie ten Boom
All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God. - Voltaire
If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new. - Voltaire
The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman nor an Empire. - Voltaire
True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others. - Voltaire
In cities where peace and the arts flourish, men are more consumed by jealousy, worry, and anxiety than they are in cities under the blight of a besieging army. Private sorrows are more bitter than public suffering. - Voltaire
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. - Voltaire
Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors. - Voltaire
The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors. - Voltaire
As long as there are fools and rascals, there will be religions. - Voltaire
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times. - Voltaire
on doit des égards aux vivants, on ne doit aux morts que la vérité. - Voltaire
Love truth, but pardon error. - Voltaire
provou que (o prazer) é um presente da divindade, 'pois - dizia - o homem não pode dar a si próprio nem sensações nem ideias, recebe tudo; a dor e o prazer lhe vêm de fora, como sua existência'. - Voltaire
This poem will never reach its destination. - Voltaire
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. - Voltaire
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing. - Voltaire
I loved him as we always love for the first time; with idolatry and wild passion. - Voltaire
It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part. - Voltaire
It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one. - Voltaire
There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts. - Voltaire
A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity. - Voltaire
The heart has its own reasons that reason can't understand. - Voltaire
If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones. - Voltaire
Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world. - Voltaire
trop de respect souvent mène à l'ingratitude - Voltaire
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."(Letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville, May 16, 1767) - Voltaire
The secret of being boring is to say everything. - Voltaire
Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do. - Voltaire
The public is a ferocious beast -- one must either chain it up or flee from it. - Voltaire
It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions. - Voltaire
Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. - Voltaire
S'il n'existait pas Dieu il faudrait l'inventer." (If God did not exist he would have to be invented.) - Voltaire
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated. - Voltaire
Canada: A few acres of snow. - Voltaire
What's optimism? said Cacambo. Alas, said Candide, it is a mania for saying things are well when one is in hell. - Voltaire
Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts. - Voltaire
It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. - Voltaire
We are rarely proud when we are alone. - Voltaire
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. - Voltaire
Injustice in the end produces independence. - Voltaire
We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one - Voltaire
The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy. - Voltaire
Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it. - Voltaire
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. - Voltaire
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it. - Voltaire
A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live. - Voltaire
Os maus - respondeu Jesrad (um anjo) - são sempre infelizes: servem para pôr à prova um reduzido número de justos espalhados sobre a terra e não há mal do qual não resulte um bem. - Voltaire
Do well and you will have no need for ancestors. - Voltaire
In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give to the other. - Voltaire
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
Every evil begets some good. - Voltaire
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. - Voltaire
The multitude of books is making us ignorant. - Voltaire
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything. - Voltaire
You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books. - Voltaire
A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. - Voltaire
The superfluous is very necessary. - Voltaire
[Optimism is] the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst. - Voltaire
Don't think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money. - Voltaire
He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked. - Voltaire
England has forty-two religions and only two sauces. - Voltaire
I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him. - Mikhail Bakunin
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. - Voltaire
The perfect is the enemy of the good. - Voltaire
As individuals, great writers from Villon to Diderot to Voltaire toRousseau to Byron or Shelley have often shown themselves to beirresponsible, selfish, mean or sometimes even cowardly people. Their lives were drab or self destructive or reckless.We read them for their Words, not for their deeds. - Max Vegaritter
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference. - Voltaire
It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. - Voltaire
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. - Voltaire
Once the people begin to reason, all is lost. - Voltaire
God created sex. Priests created marriage. - Voltaire
We're neither pure; nor wise; nor good; we do the best we know. - Voltaire
Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. - Voltaire
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
When its a question of money, everybody is of the same religion. - Voltaire
God is always on the side of the big battalions. - Voltaire
era uma vez um grão de areia que se lamentava de ser um átomo ignorado do deserto; ao final de alguns anos tornou-se diamente (...). Essas palavras me deixaram impressionado; eu era o grão de areia, resolvi tornar-me diamante. - Voltaire
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it. - Voltaire
Love truth, and pardon error. - Voltaire
Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less in human beings of whom they know nothing. - Voltaire
History is a pack of lies we play on the dead. - Voltaire
An opportunity fordoing an injury happens a hundred times a day, hut for doing good not once a year," says Zoroaster. - Voltaire
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
Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one. - Voltaire
One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything's fine today, that is our illusion - Voltaire
Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. - Voltaire
The secret of being tiresome is in telling everything. - Voltaire
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living. - Voltaire
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. - Voltaire
When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation. - Voltaire
The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood. - Voltaire
Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn't illegal. - Voltaire
Anything too stupid to be said is sung. - Voltaire
I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one. - Voltaire
There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable. - Voltaire
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. - Voltaire
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls. - Voltaire
These marranos go wherever there is money to be made. - Voltaire
Life resembles the banquet of Damocles; the sword is ever suspended. - Voltaire
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too. - Voltaire
Each player must accept the cards life deals him. But once they are in hand, he alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game. - Voltaire
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil. - Voltaire
God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh. - Voltaire
Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes. - Voltaire
I've decided to be happy because it's good for my health. - Voltaire
It is not improbable that in hot countries, monkeys may have enslaved girls. - Voltaire
Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were of course exterminated. - Voltaire
There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics... We repeat, there was far more imagination in the head of Archimedes than in that of Homer. - Voltaire
Prejudice is opinion without judgement. - Voltaire
All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God. - Voltaire
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. - Voltaire
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. - Voltaire