Voltaire Law Quotations

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.

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

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

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion.

Men must have somewhat altered the course of nature; for they were not born wolves, yet they have become wolves. God did not give them twenty-four-pounders or bayonets, yet they have made themselves bayonets and guns to destroy each other. In the same category I place not only bankruptcies, but the law which carries off the bankrupts’ effects, so as to defraud their creditors.

Why are the Jews hated? It is the inevitable result of their laws; they either have to conquer everybody or be hated by the whole human race...

The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor.

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.

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

I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.

What is toleration? It is the prerogative of humanity. We are all steeped in weaknesses and errors: Let us forgive one another's follies, it is the first law of nature.

It is the first law of friendship that it has to be cultivated. The second is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected.

The opinion of all lawyers, the unanimous cry of the nation, and the good of the state, are in themselves a law.

If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.

Let all the laws be clear, uniform and precise for interpreting laws is almost always to corrupt them.

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.

It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice.