Voltaire quotes - page 6

To enjoy life we must touch much of it lightly. (Voltaire)
We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved. View quote
Voltaire
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature [of d'Holbach] - after the recipe for making eels from flour - is the audacity with which it decides that there is no God, without even having tried to prove the impossibility. View quote
Voltaire
What a pity and what a poverty of spirit, to assert that beasts are machines deprived of knowledge and sentiment, which affect all their operations in the same manner, which learn nothing, never improve, &c. [...] Some barbarians seize this dog, who so prodigiously excels man in friendship, they nail him to a table, and dissect him living, to show the mezarian veins. You discover in him all the same organs of sentiment which are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the springs of sentiment in this animal that he should not feel? Has he nerves to be incapable of suffering? Do not suppose this impertinent contradiction in nature. [...] The animal has received those of sentiment, memory, and a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts, who has given these faculties? He who has made the herb of the field to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate towards the sun. View quote
Voltaire
It was in the reign of Charles II that they obtained the noble distinction of being exempted from giving their testimony on oath in a court of justice, and being believed on their bare affirmation. On this occasion the chancellor, who was a man of wit, spoke to them as follows: "Friends, Jupiter one day ordered that all the beasts of burden should repair to be shod. The asses represented that their laws would not allow them to submit to that operation. 'Very well,' said Jupiter; 'then you shall not be shod; but the first false step you make, you may depend upon being severely drubbed.'" View quote
Voltaire
I opened with that which good Catholics have more than once made to Huguenots. "My dear sir," said I, "were you ever baptized?" "No, friend," replied the Quaker, "nor any of my brethren." "Zounds!" said I to him, "you are not Christians then!" "Friend," replied the old man, in a soft tone of voice, "do not swear; we are Christians, but we do not think that sprinkling a few drops of water on a child's head makes him a Christian." "My God!" exclaimed I, shocked at his impiety, "have you then forgotten that Christ was baptized by St. John?" "Friend," replied the mild Quaker, "once again, do not swear. Christ was baptized by John, but He Himself never baptized any one; now we profess ourselves disciples of Christ, and not of John." "Mercy on us," cried I, "what a fine subject you would be for the holy inquisitor! In the name of God, my good old man, let me baptize you." View quote
Voltaire
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. View quote
Voltaire
History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead. View quote
Voltaire
Business is the salt of life. View quote
Voltaire
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. View quote
Voltaire
It is very strange that men should deny a creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels. (Voltaire)
Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies. View quote
Voltaire
Money is always to be found when men are to be sent to the frontiers to be destroyed: when the object is to preserve them, it is no longer so. View quote
Voltaire
A single part of physics occupies the lives of many men, and often leaves them dying in uncertainty. View quote
Voltaire
Books, like conversation, rarely give us any precise ideas: nothing is so common as to read and converse unprofitably. We must here repeat what Locke has so strongly urged-Define your terms. View quote
Voltaire
While loving glory so much how can you persist in a plan which will cause you to lose it? View quote
Voltaire
The first who was king was a fortunate soldier: Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors. View quote
Voltaire
Use, do not abuse; as the wise man commands. I flee Epictetus and Petronius alike. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy. View quote
Voltaire
Etymology is a science in which vowels signify nothing at all, and consonants very little. View quote
Voltaire
A people that sells its own children is more condemnable than the buyer; this commerce demonstrates our superiority; he who gives himself a master was born to have one. View quote
Voltaire
The king [Frederic] has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time. (Voltaire)
The English have only one sauce, melted butter. View quote
Voltaire
The adjective is the enemy of the substantive. View quote
Voltaire
All philosophical sects have run aground on the reef of moral and physical ill. It only remains for us to confess that God, having acted for the best, had not been able to do better. View quote
Voltaire
It is the privilege of true genius, and certainly of the genius that opens a new road, to make without punishment great mistakes. View quote
Voltaire