Continued Insights from Voltaire

"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be"

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

"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"

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

"Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them"

"The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year"

"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"

"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices"

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

"The husband who decides to surprise his wife is often very much surprised himself"

"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"

"It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue"

"Clever tyrants are never punished"

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

"The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days"

"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"

"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"

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

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason"

"The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice"

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

"Better is the enemy of good"

"All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women"

"All styles are good except the tiresome kind"

"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"

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

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

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Inspiring Quotes by Voltaire - Page 2