Best 654 quotes of Voltaire on MyQuotes

A circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such sublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a quadrant and a little arithmetic.

A clergyman is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.

Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft; but we do not steal that which is given to us.

A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity

A fool is a person who guesses and gets it wrong, a clever man is one who guesses, regardless of time period, and gets it right.

A good action is preferable to an argument.

A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not temperate.

A good imitation is the most perfect originality

A historian has many duties... the first is not to slander; the second is not to bore

A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good.

All events are linked together in the best of possible worlds; after all, if you had not been driven from a fine castle by being kicked in the backside for love of Miss Cunegonde, if you hadn't been sent before the Inquisition, if you hadn't traveled across America on foot, if you hadn't given a good sword thrust to the baron, if you hadn't lost all your sheep from the good land of Eldorado, you wouldn't be sitting here eating candied citron and pistachios. - That is very well put, said Candide, but we must cultivate our garden.

All is a miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of stars, the activity of light, the life of all animals, all are grand and perpetual miracles.

All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.

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

All pleasantry should be short; and it might even be as well were the serious short also.

All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.

All styles are good except the tiresome kind.

All succeeds with people who are sweet and cheerful.

All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon

All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they may be equally free

All the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

All the persecutors declare against each other mortal war, while the philosopher, oppressed by them all, contents himself with pitying them.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

Almost all life depends on probabilities.

A long dispute means both parties are wrong.

A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble.

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.

Among the illusions which have invested our civilization is an absolute belief that the solutions to our problems must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise... The reality is that our problems are largely the product of that application.

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

An admiral should be put to death now and then to encourage the others.

An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

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.

Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!

Answer me, you who believe that animals are only machines. Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all?

Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day required to perform a miracle; namely to reconcile health with intemperance.

A physician is one who pours drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Ask a toad what is beauty....; he will answer that it is a female with two great round eyes coming out of her little head, a large flat head, a yellow belly and a brown back.

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.

A small number of choice books are sufficient.

As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites.

Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.

A witty quote proves nothing.

A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention.

A witty saying proves nothing.