Quotes By Voltaire

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.

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

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

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.

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.