Quotes by Voltaire
It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.
I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.
It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.
To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
A witty saying proves nothing.
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.
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.
Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.
Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
