Voltaire Quotations | Page 4

Everything happens through immutable laws, ...everything is necessary... There are, some persons say, some events which are necessary and others which are not. It would be very comic that one part of the world was arranged, and the other were not; that one part of what happens had to happen and that another part of what happens did not have to happen. If one looks closely at it, one sees that the doctrine contrary to that of destiny is absurd; but there are many people destined to reason badly; others not to reason at all others to persecute those who reason.

Now, you receive all your ideas; therefore you receive your wish, you wish therefore necessarily. The word "liberty" does not therefore belong in any way to your will....The will, therefore, is not a faculty that one can call free. A free will is an expression absolutely void of sense, and what the scholastics have called will of indifference, that is to say willing without cause, is a chimera unworthy of being combated.

A long dispute means both parties are wrong.

The way to become boring is to say everything.

I also know that we should cultivate our gardens.

Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting.

The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force.

I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race.

Work is often the father of pleasure.

Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness.

Man is not born wicked; he becomes so, as he becomes sick.

The question of good and evil remains in irremediable chaos for those who seek to fathom it in reality. It is mere mental sport to the disputants, who are captives that play with their chains.

To caress the serpent that devours us, until it has eaten away our heart.

The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.

In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.

theology is to religion what poisons are to food

Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.

But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

It is proved...that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

Truth is a fruit that can only be picked when it is very ripe.

Know that the secret of the arts is to correct nature.

Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.

If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.

Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities.

The man who says to me, "Believe as I do, or God will damn you," will presently say, "Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you."

We adore, we invoke, we seek to appease, only that which we fear.

If mankind were born tomorrow it would divide into groups; each would scramble to invent their one and only god, and set about butchering each-other.

He is lifeless that is faultless.

The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Variant: The adjective is the enemy of the substantive.

If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.

Chess is a game which reflects most honor on human wit.

I serve your Beaune to my friends, but your Volnay I keep for myself.

The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people.

All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.

This is no time to make new enemies.

It is impossible to translate poetry. Can you translate music?

Shun idleness. It is rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.

The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

The superfluous is very necessary.

No, nothing has the power to part me from you; our love is based upon virtue, and will last as long as our lives.

Individual misfortunes give rise to the general good; so that the more individual misfortunes exist, the more all is fine.

The Pride of every Jew finds cause to believe that the cause of their down fall is not their detestable politics, or ignorance of social graces, but the raft of God. They believe it took a miracle to undo them.

The Jews have always been waiting for a Messiah, but their Messiah is for them only, not for us, a Messiah ho will give them mastery over the Christians.

Everything can be borne except contempt.

England has forty-two religions and only two sauces.

If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.

Changing a habit is hard work. But it's harder to find work that would be more fulfilling

Your destiny is that of a man, your vows those of a god.

A witty quote proves nothing.

I envy animals for two things - their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them.

All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws

Music is the pathway to the heart.

If it's too silly to be said, it can always be sung.

We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.

The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic.

An admiral should be put to death now and then to encourage the others.

Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.

Heaven made virtue; man, the appearance.

Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world.

He who has heard the same thing told by 12,000 eye-witnesses has only 12,000 probabilities, which are equal to one strong probability, which is far from certain.

All the persecutors declare against each other mortal war, while the philosopher, oppressed by them all, contents himself with pitying them.

The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him.

If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero.

Needless to say since Christ's expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die.

It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been made.

It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion.

A woman can keep one secret the secret of her age.

Whenever an important event, a revolution, or a calamity turns to the profit of the church, such is always signalised as the Finger of God.

There's scarce a point whereon mankind agree - So well as in their boast of killing me; I boast of nothing, but when I've a mind - I think I can be even with mankind

He who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity.

For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm.

What will the preachers say? .. to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike.

God created women only to tame men.

Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked.

Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities.

A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.

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.

A circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such sublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a quadrant and a little arithmetic.

Those who are absent, by its means become present; it [mail] is the consolation of life.

Ask a toad what is beauty ...; he will answer that it is a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat mouth, a yellow belly and a brown back.

It must be confessed that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men than the inventors of syllogisms.

Custom, law bent my first years to the religion of the happy Muslims. I see it too clearly: the care taken of our childhood forms our feelings, our habits, our belief. By the Ganges I would have been a slave of the false gods, a Christian in Paris, a Muslim here.

A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not temperate.

No one is ignorant that our character and turn of mind are intimately connected with the water-closet.

Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France.

All succeeds with people who are sweet and cheerful.

The most genuine and efficacious charity is that which greases the paws of the priests; such charity covers a multitude of sins.

As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites.

The son of God is the same as the son of man; the son of man is the same as the son of God. God, the father, is the same as Christ, the son; Christ, the son, is the same as God, the father. This language may appear confused to unbelievers, but Christians will readily understand it.

In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten.

Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote.

All the arts are brothers; each one is a light to the others.

The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs.

We have our arts, the ancients had theirs... We cannot raise obelisks a hundred feet high in a single piece, but our meridians are more exact.

You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it.

All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.