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Voltaire - From the Amusement category:
Let us read and let us dance – two amusements that will never do any harm to the world. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Appreciation category:
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Art category:
The secret of the arts is to correct nature. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Authority category:
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Beauty category:
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Beginning category:
The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Belief category:
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Books category:
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Boredom category:
The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Business category:
Business is the salt of life. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Communication category:
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Consideration category:
We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly – that is the first law of nature. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Courage category:
Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare / The truth thou hast, that all may share; / Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: / They only live who dare. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Creativity category:
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Criticism category:
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Desire category:
We cannot wish for that we know not. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Doubt category:
Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Drunkenness category:
Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Earth category:
Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Ego category:
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. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Expectation category:
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Fashion category:
It is new fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Freedom category:
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Freedom category:
-referring to Helvetius' De L'Esprit which was publicly burned in 1758...
I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Future category:
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Gender category:
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Generosity category:
We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Goodness category:
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Guilt category:
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Happiness category:
The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Health category:
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Humanity category:
Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Humour category:
God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Illusion category:
Illusion is the first of all pleasures. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Individuality category:
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Instinct category:
The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Language category:
Tears are the silent language of grief. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Life category:
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Listening category:
The ear is the avenue to the heart. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Love category:
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Love category:
It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Meditation category:
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Mistakes category:
The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Mistakes category:
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Moderation category:
Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Money category:
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Music category:
Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Nature category:
Nature has always had more force than education. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Optimism category:
Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Originality category:
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Painting category:
The little may contrast with the great, in painting, but cannot be said to be contrary to it. Oppositions of colors contrast; but there are also colors contrary to each other, that is, which produce an ill effect because they shock the eye when brought very near it. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Passion category:
Change everything, except your passions. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Patriotism category:
Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Perfection category:
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Perfection category:
Perfect is the enemy of good. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Pets category:
Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Philosophy category:
History should be written as philosophy. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Pleasure category:
To really enjoy pleasures, you must know how to leave them. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Pleasure category:
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Poetry category:
One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Prayer category:
I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Problems category:
Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Questions category:
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Questions category:
He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Recognition category:
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Religion category:
If God made us in His image, we have certainly returned the compliment. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Religion category:
If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Responsibility category:
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Satisfaction category:
Paradise is where I am. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Searching category:
If we do not find anything pleasant, at least we will find something new. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Silence category:
The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Solitude category:
We are rarely proud when we are alone. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Spirituality category:
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. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Standards category:
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Style category:
All styles are good except the tiresome kind. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Theory category:
Let us work without theorizing, 'tis the only way to make life endurable. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Thinking category:
No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Time category:
Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Timeliness category:
He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Truth category:
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Understanding category:
The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Winning category:
Each player must accept the cards life deals: but once they are in hand, one must decide alone how to play the cards in order to win the game. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Wisdom category:
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Words category:
One great use of words is to hide our thoughts. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Words category:
Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Work category:
Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Worth category:
The superfluous, a very necessary thing. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Writing category:
In every author let us distinguish the man from his works. (Voltaire)
Voltaire - From the Writing category:
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. (Voltaire)
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