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Quotations of selected author

François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

1694 - 1778. French writer, philosopher and historian, one of most commonly known people in XVIII century`s Europe.

1. "Where friendship is, there is one's homeland."

categories: Friendship and Hostility

2. "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."

source: "Philosophical Dictionary"

categories: Defeates and Mistakes -:- Human

3. "To wish greatness for one's country is to wish harm to one's neighbors."

categories: History and Nations -:- Politics and Diplomacy

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

source: "Premiere Lettre sur Oedipe"

categories: Truth and Falsity

5. "To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid; you must also be well-mannered."

categories: Manners and Ethics -:- Success and Fame

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

categories: Human

7. "There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times."

categories: Truth and Falsity

8. "The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."

categories: Various

9. "The best is the enemy of the good."

source: Philosophical Dictionary

categories: Good and Evil

10. "The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."

categories: Health and Alcohol

11. "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the diseases."

categories: Health and Alcohol

12. "Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them."

categories: Science and Technology -:- Wisdom and Stupidity

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

source: "A Treatise on Toleration"

categories: God and Religion -:- Normality and Madness -:- Science and Technology

14. "Prejudice is an opinion without judgement."

source: "Philosophical Dictionary"

categories: Intellect, Judgement -:- Manners and Ethics

15. "Our two eyes do not make our lot better; one serves us to see the good things, the other the evils of life. A lot of people have the bad habit of closing the first, and very few close the second."

source: "The One-Eyed Porter"

categories: Human -:- Good and Evil

16. "Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable."

source: "Candide"

categories: Optimism and Hope

17. "Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours."

categories: Manners and Ethics -:- Pain and Tears

18. "My God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies."

categories: Friendship and Hostility

19. "Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men."

categories: God and Religion -:- Manners and Ethics

20. "Love truth, but pardon error."

categories: Truth and Falsity -:- Defeates and Mistakes

21. "Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson."

source: "Philosophical Dictionary"

categories: Law and Crime

22. "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers."

categories: Intellect, Judgement -:- Question and Problem

23. "It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him."

source: "Questions sur l'Encyclopédie"

categories: Human

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

categories: Time and Passing

25. "It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

source: "Questions sur l'Encyclopédie"

categories: Authority, Government -:- Law and Crime

26. "It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong. "

source: "Le Siecle de Louis XIV"

categories: Authority, Government -:- Truth and Falsity

27. "It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one."

categories: Justice

28. "In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other."

source: "Philosophical Dictionary"

categories: Authority, Government -:- Richness and Money

29. "If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness."

source: "Letters on England"

categories: God and Religion -:- History and Nations

30. "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

categories: God and Religion

31. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

categories: Law and Crime

32. "History is the lie commonly agreed upon."

categories: History and Nations

33. "History is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes."

categories: History and Nations

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

categories: Justice -:- Wisdom and Stupidity

35. "Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers."

source: "Voltaire's Notebooks"

categories: Authority, Government

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

source: "Voltaire's Notebooks"

categories: Peace and War -:- Power and Weakness

37. "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

categories: God and Religion

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

categories: God and Religion

39. "Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever, and what rage is to anger. The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic."

source: "Philosophical Dictionary"

categories: Normality and Madness -:- Various

40. "Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe."

source: "Questions sur l'Encyclopédie"

categories: God and Religion -:- Intellect, Judgement

41. "Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do."

source: "Le Siecle de Louis XIV"

categories: Human -:- Good and Evil

42. "Doctors are men who pour drugs of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, into human beings of whom they know nothing."

categories: Health and Alcohol

43. "Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient."

source: "Philosophical Dictionary"

categories: Marriage

44. "Clever tyrants are never punished."

categories: Authority, Government

45. "A miracle is the violation of mathematical, divine, immutable, eternal laws. By this very statement, a miracle is a contradiction in terms. A law cannot be immutable and violable at the same time."

source: "Philosophical Dictionary"

categories: Various


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