Continued Insights from Voltaire

"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"

"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"

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

"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"

"History should be written as philosophy"

"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well"

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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 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"

"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"

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

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

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

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Inspiring Quotes by Voltaire - Page 2