Voltaire quotes - page 4

Superstition sets the whole world in flames philosophy quenches them. (Voltaire)
Dare to think for yourself. View quote
Voltaire
Work is often the father of pleasure. View quote
Voltaire
Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers. View quote
Voltaire
God created women only to tame men. View quote
Voltaire
We must cultivate our garden. View quote
Voltaire
We owe respect to the living to the dead we owe nothing but truth. View quote
Voltaire
In this best of possible worlds ... all is for the best. View quote
Voltaire
Weakness on both sides is, the motto of all quarrels. View quote
Voltaire
Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game. View quote
Voltaire
Ancient histories, as one of our wits has said, are but fables that have been agreed upon. (Voltaire)
Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons. View quote
Voltaire
"If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it. View quote
Voltaire
"Optimism," said Cacambo, "What is that?" "Alas!" replied Candide, "It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst! View quote
Voltaire
Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity. View quote
Voltaire
The ear is the avenue to the heart. View quote
Voltaire
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. View quote
Voltaire
The multitude of books is making us ignorant. View quote
Voltaire
Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. View quote
Voltaire
God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. View quote
Voltaire
Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees. (Voltaire)
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense. View quote
Voltaire
It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him. View quote
Voltaire
A minister of state is excusable for the harm he does when the helm of government has forced his hand in a storm; but in the calm he is guilty of all the good he does not do. View quote
Voltaire
A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity. View quote
Voltaire