"Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all; and others, to persecute those who do reason."

Voltaire on reason
7 fans of this quote   

"The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors."

Voltaire on opinions   

"In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation."

Voltaire on news
3 fans of this quote   

"If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness."

Voltaire on multiculturalism
4 fans of this quote   

"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion."

Voltaire on money
6 fans of this quote   

"When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics."

Voltaire on physics   

"The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease."

Voltaire on medicine
9 fans of this quote   

"Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly."

Voltaire on marriage   

"In this country it's a good thing to kill an admiral now and then to encourage the others."

Voltaire on army and navy   

"Originality is nothing but judicious plagiarism."

Voltaire on originality
7 fans of this quote   

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

Voltaire on passion
5 fans of this quote   

"Perfection is attained by slow degrees; she requires the hand of time."

Voltaire on patience
4 fans of this quote   

"He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked."

Voltaire on questions
6 fans of this quote   

"Judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers."

Voltaire on questions
14 fans of this quote   

"The punishment of criminals should serve a purpose. When a man is hanged he is useless."

Voltaire on punishment
7 fans of this quote   

"No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking."

Voltaire on problems
4 fans of this quote   

"The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great."

Voltaire on pride
4 fans of this quote   

"Prejudices are what fools use for reason."

Voltaire on prejudice
8 fans of this quote   

"When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy."

Voltaire on philosophers and philosophy   

"The public is a ferocious beast. One must either chain it up or flee from it."

Voltaire on people   

"Weakness on both sides is, the motto of all quarrels."

Voltaire on argument   

"Men argue, nature acts."

Voltaire on argument
4 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"A long dispute means that both parties are wrong"

Voltaire on argument
7 fans of this quote   

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."

Voltaire on government
12 fans of this quote   

"Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers."

Voltaire on government
3 fans of this quote   

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."

Voltaire on god
11 fans of this quote   

"Do well and you will have no need for ancestors."

Voltaire on ancestry
6 fans of this quote   

"Every man is the creature of the age in which he lives; very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time."

Voltaire on age and aging   

"May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies."

Voltaire on friends and friendship
17 fans of this quote   

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Voltaire on freedom
14 fans of this quote   

"Liberty, then, about which so many volumes have been written is, when accurately defined, only the power of acting."

Voltaire on freedom   

"The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination."

Voltaire on government
6 fans of this quote   

"History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead."

Voltaire on history and historians   

"Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him."

Voltaire on greed   

"By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property."

Voltaire on appreciation
4 fans of this quote   

"Animals have these advantages over man: They have no theologians to instruct them, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills."

Voltaire on animals
7 fans of this quote   

"We never live; we are always in the expectation of living."

Voltaire on life
4 fans of this quote   

"I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms."

Voltaire on lies and lying
6 fans of this quote   

"I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one."

Voltaire on law and lawyers
3 fans of this quote   

"I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life that he had wasted his time. It must be admitted that the inventors of the mechanical arts have been much more useful to men that the inventors of syllogisms. He who imagined a ship towers considerably above him who imagined innate ideas."

Voltaire on imagination
4 fans of this quote