Facts about Voltaire 
Summary
Voltaire was a famous Writer from France, who lived between November 21, 1694 and May 30, 1778. He became 83 years old.
Biography
Voltaire was a prolific writer and wrote works in nearly every literary form and genres, including plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works, more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was outspoken advocate of social reforms, despite the censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke the law. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently used his writings and books to criticize the Catholic Church dogma and the French institutions of his time. He was a leading representative of Deism, a thinking that claimed that there is a God who created everything, but do not rule the world.
Voltaire was one of several famous writers during the Enlightenment, together with the Charles Montesquieu, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who influenced other significant thinkers who in turn had influence on both the French as the American Revolution. Zodiac etc.
He is born under the zodiac scorpio, who is known for Transient, Self-Willed, Purposeful, Unyielding.
Our collection contains 131 quotes who is written / told by Voltaire, under the main topics: Motivational, Age, Birthday, Faith, Intelligence.
Related authors: John Tillotson, Evelyn Beatrice Hall, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Source / external links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire
Famous quotes by Voltaire (131)
"Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need"
"What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy"
"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason"
"The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire"
"The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence"
"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"
"It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it"
"We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest"
"This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it"
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
"The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days"
"The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease"
"Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same"
"Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes"
"We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly"
"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another"
"He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead"
"We cannot wish for that we know not"
"Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another"
"Do well and you will have no need for ancestors"
"Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient"
"Clever tyrants are never punished"
"Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause"
"By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property"
"Business is the salt of life"
"Better is the enemy of good"
"Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law"
"As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities"
"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well"
"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung"
"Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel"
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices"
"An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination"
"All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women"
"All styles are good except the tiresome kind"
"All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets"
"All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God"
"A witty saying proves nothing"
"Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life"
"Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors"
"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion"
"When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics"
"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"
"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"
"Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool"
"Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors"
"Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy"
"Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them"
"To the wicked, everything serves as pretext"
"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth"
"To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered"
"To hold a pen is to be at war"
"To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd"
"Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable"
"The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything"
"The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death"
"The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it"
"The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error"
"The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year"
"The multitude of books is making us ignorant"
"The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs"
"The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it"
"The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all"
"The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great"
"The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third"
"The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil"
"The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in"
"Tears are the silent language of grief"
"Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth"
"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"
"Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die"
"Prejudices are what fools use for reason"
"Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time"
"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible"
"No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking"
"Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument"
"Nature has always had more force than education"
"Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts"
"Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him"
"Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity"
"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be"
"Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination"
"It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love"
"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"
"It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce"
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere"
"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong"
"It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one"
"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"
"Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?"
"Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal"
"I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms"
"I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil"
"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it"
"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"
"I hate women because they always know where things are"
"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it"
"I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom"
"History should be written as philosophy"
"Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent"
"Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce"
"Fear follows crime and is its punishment"
"Everything's fine today, that is our illusion"
"Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest"
"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do"
"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 cards in order to win the game"
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd"
"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"
"Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable"
"He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked"
"God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh"
"The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it"
"One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose"
"Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men"
"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense"
"In every author let us distinguish the man from his works"
"Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels"
"We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard"
"It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue"
"The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself"
"Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world"
"The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice"
"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well"
"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe"
"Common sense is not so common"
"How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted"
"It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind"
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets"
"There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times"
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