Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
– Voltaire
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
– Voltaire
Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
– Voltaire
I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
– Voltaire
Common sense is not so common.
– Voltaire
Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.
– Voltaire
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and
to the sound of trumpets.
– Voltaire
Men use thought only to justify their wrong-doings, and speech only to conceal their
toughts.
– Voltaire
Dare to think for yourself.
– Voltaire
Our friends abandon us only too easily, and our enemies are implacable.
– Voltaire
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
– Voltaire
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies – it is the
first law of nature.
– Voltaire
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
– Voltaire
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
– Voltaire
Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the
argument.
– Voltaire
Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.
– Voltaire
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
– Voltaire
When he who hears doesn’t know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks
doesn’t know what he himself means – that is philosophy.
– Voltaire
He who thinks himself wise, O Heavens! is a great fool.
– Voltaire
Paradise is where I am.
– Voltaire
Who has not the spirit of his age, of his age has all the unhappiness.
– Voltaire
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord, make my enemies
ridiculous.” And God granted it.
– Voltaire
The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess
it.
– Voltaire
There are men who can think no deeper than a fact.
– Voltaire
Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
– Voltaire
Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.
– Voltaire
In this country (England) it is useful from time to time to kill one admiral in order to
encourage the others.
– Voltaire
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
– Voltaire
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you
commit injustices.
– Voltaire
Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies.
– Voltaire
Work keeps us from three great evils, boredom, vice, and poverty.
– Voltaire
This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire is
neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
– Voltaire
Change everything, ecxept your loves.
– Voltaire
History is no more than the portrayal of crimes and misfortunes.
– Voltaire
I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.
– Voltaire
Orgies: participate once, you’re a philosopher; twice, a pervert.
– Voltaire
Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.
– Voltaire
The best is the enemy of the good.
– Voltaire
The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature effects the cure.
– Voltaire
What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.
– Voltaire
Friendship is the marriage of the soul.
– Voltaire
Let us read and let us dance – two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
– Voltaire
Virtue debases itself in justifying itself.
– Voltaire
Love truth, but pardon error.
– Voltaire
In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one
class of citizens to give to the other.
– Voltaire
Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.
– Voltaire
If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others like?
– Voltaire
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
– Voltaire
Every man, as to character, is the creature of the age in which he lives. Very few are able to
raise themselves above the ideas of their times.
– Voltaire
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
– Voltaire
The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks.
– Voltaire
All the reasons of a man cannot outweigh a single feeling of a woman.
– Voltaire
The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
– Voltaire
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother.
These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
– Voltaire
The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to
him.
– Voltaire
Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.
– Voltaire
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
– Voltaire
Anything too stupid to be said is sung.
– Voltaire