Voltaire Good Quotations

The fate of a nation is often dependent upon the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.

I should stop myself from dying if a good joke or a good idea occurred to me

All kinds are good except the kind that bores you.

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.

When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit money when there is no good money.

The pursuit of what is true and the practice of what is good are the two most important objects of philosophy.

Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies." (Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)

A good action is preferable to an argument.

I confess that my stomach does not take to this style of cooking. I cannot accept calves sweetbreads swimming in a salty sauce, nor can I eat mince consisting of turkey, hare, and rabbit, which they try to persuade me comes from a single animal... As for the cooks, I really cannot be expected to put up with this ham essence, nor the excessive quantity of morels and other mushrooms, pepper, and nutmeg with which they disguise perfectly good food.

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

There can be no happiness without good health