Quotes By Voltaire

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

The best is the enemy of the good.

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

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

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

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

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

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

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

Clever tyrants are never punished.

I hate women because they always know where things are.

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

Society therefore is an ancient as the world.

It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.

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.

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

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

History should be written as philosophy.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

We cannot wish for that we know not.

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

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

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.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

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

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

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