Inspiring Quotes by Voltaire - Page 2

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

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

"History should be written as philosophy"

"Fear follows crime and is its punishment"

"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"

"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"

"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare"

"Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time"

"The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in"

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

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

"My life is a struggle"

"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"

"Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce"

"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"

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

"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"

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

"The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death"

"Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another"

"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"

"When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics"

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

"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense"

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

"Clever tyrants are never punished"

"Do well and you will have no need for ancestors"

"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"

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

"One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose"

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

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

"I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way"

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

"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"

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

"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"

"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"

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

"We cannot wish for that we know not"

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

"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"

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