Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet in 1694, was a leading figure of the French Enlightenment. Known for his sharp wit and satirical writings, he championed reason, religious tolerance, and freedom of speech. Voltaire critiqued established institutions, including the Catholic Church and monarchy, advocating for the separation of church and state. His influential novella, “Candide” (1759), satirized optimism and exposed the absurdities of the world. Voltaire’s prolific output encompassed plays, essays, letters, and philosophical treatises. A staunch defender of intellectual freedom, his ideas had a profound impact on Enlightenment thinkers and contributed to shaping modern Western thought. He died in 1778, leaving a lasting legacy as a critical and influential voice of his era.
Voltaire Quotes
1. “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
— Voltaire
2. “I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.”
— Voltaire
3. “The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.”
— Voltaire
4. “The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.”
— Voltaire
5. “Common sense is not so common.”
— Voltaire
6. “Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”
— Voltaire
7. “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
— Voltaire
8. “Writing is the painting of the voice.”
— Voltaire
9. “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
— Voltaire
10. “Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.”
— Voltaire
11. “The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”
— Voltaire
12. “Don’t think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money.”
— Voltaire
13. “The best is the enemy of the good.”
— Voltaire
14. “The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.”
— Voltaire
15. “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”
— Voltaire
16. “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”
— Voltaire
17. “My life is a struggle.”
— Voltaire
18. “Present opportunities are not to be neglected; they rarely visit us twice.”
— Voltaire
19. “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”
— Voltaire
20. “If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.”
— Voltaire
21. “To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid – one must also be well-mannered.”
— Voltaire
22. “Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
— Voltaire
23. “The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us”
— Voltaire
24. “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
— Voltaire
25. “History never repeats itself. Man always does.”
— Voltaire
26. “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
— Voltaire
27. “Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
— Voltaire
28. “God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
— Voltaire
29. “Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.”
— Voltaire
30. “Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.”
— Voltaire
31. “Prejudices are what fools use for reason.”
— Voltaire
32. “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.”
— Voltaire
33. “Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero.”
— Voltaire
34. “May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.”
— Voltaire
35. “Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said.”
— Voltaire
36. “Paradise is where I am.”
— Voltaire
37. “When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
— Voltaire
38. “If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.”
— Voltaire
39. “Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”
— Voltaire
40. “Dare to think for yourself.”
— Voltaire
41. “Prejudice is opinion without judgement.”
— Voltaire
42. “The biggest reward for a thing well done is to have done it.”
— Voltaire
43. “Men argue. Nature acts.”
— Voltaire
44. “Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.”
— Voltaire
45. “Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.”
— Voltaire
46. “A witty saying proves nothing.”
— Voltaire
47. “Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.”
— Voltaire
48. “What is history? The lie that everyone agrees on…”
— Voltaire
49. “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”
— Voltaire
50. “The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.”
— Voltaire
51. “The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.”
— Voltaire
52. “It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.”
— Voltaire
53. “Let us cultivate our garden.”
— Voltaire
54. “God created woman to tame man.”
— Voltaire
55. “Fanaticism is a monster that pretends to be the child of religion.”
— Voltaire
56. “Life is a shipwreck but we must remember to sing in the lifeboats.”
— Voltaire
57. “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.”
— Voltaire
58. “Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.”
— Voltaire
59. “Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.”
— Voltaire
60. “We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.”
— Voltaire
61. “I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.”
— Voltaire
62. “All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.”
— Voltaire
63. “It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.”
— Voltaire
64. “Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”
— Voltaire
65. “The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.”
— Voltaire
66. “We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know.”
— Voltaire
67. “One should always aim at being interesting, rather than exact.”
— Voltaire
68. “Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.”
— Voltaire
69. “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
— Voltaire
70. “To enjoy life we must touch much of it lightly.”
— Voltaire
71. “I have chosen to be happy because it is goo for my health.”
— Voltaire
72. “Tears are the silent language of grief.”
— Voltaire
73. “We adore, we invoke, we seek to appease, only that which we fear.”
— Voltaire
74. “The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him.”
— Voltaire
75. “We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.”
— Voltaire
76. “Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.”
— Voltaire
77. “God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.”
— Voltaire
78. “There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.”
— Voltaire
79. “It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.”
— Voltaire
80. “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.”
— Voltaire
81. “Language is a very difficult thing to put into words.”
— Voltaire
82. “History is the lie commonly agreed upon.”
— Voltaire
83. “A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people’s attention.”
— Voltaire
84. “Give me the patience for the small things of life, courage for the great trials of life. Help me to do my best each day and then go to sleep knowing God is awake.”
— Voltaire
85. “The composition of a tragedy requires testicles.”
— Voltaire
86. “Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.”
— Voltaire
87. “Constant happiness is the philosopher’s stone of the soul.”
— Voltaire
88. “A long dispute means both parties are wrong.”
— Voltaire
89. “Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all.”
— Voltaire
90. “The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”
— Voltaire
91. “History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.”
— Voltaire
92. “History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions.”
— Voltaire
93. “Why are the Jews hated? It is the inevitable result of their laws; they either have to conquer everybody or be hated by the whole human race…”
— Voltaire
94. “If there’s life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe’s insane asylum.”
— Voltaire
95. “It is not the answers you give, but the questions you ask.”
— Voltaire
96. “The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.”
— Voltaire
97. “Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”
— Voltaire
98. “Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.”
— Voltaire
99. “Man is not born wicked; he becomes so, as he becomes sick.”
— Voltaire
100. “I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc…”
— Voltaire
101. “The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else’s eyes.”
— Voltaire
102. “We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies – it is the first law of nature.”
— Voltaire
103. “We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.”
— Voltaire
104. “Love truth, but pardon error.”
— Voltaire
105. “Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.”
— Voltaire
106. “Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?”
— Voltaire
107. “The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their virtue. Everything in a religion which does not tend towards this goal must be considered foreign or dangerous.”
— Voltaire
108. “Where some states possess an army, the Prussian Army possesses a state.”
— Voltaire
109. “God created sex. Priests created marriage.”
— Voltaire
110. “You have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you.”
— Voltaire
111. “In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten.”
— Voltaire
112. “Errors flies from mouth to mouth, from pen to pen, and to destroy it takes ages.”
— Voltaire
113. “Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.”
— Voltaire
114. “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”
— Voltaire
115. “It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.”
— Voltaire
116. “Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.”
— Voltaire
117. “It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.”
— Voltaire
118. “Changing a habit is hard work. But it’s harder to find work that would be more fulfilling.”
— Voltaire
119. “Virtuous men alone possess friends.”
— Voltaire
120. “There can be no happiness without good health.”
— Voltaire
121. “Shun idleness. It is rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.”
— Voltaire
122. “He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice.”
— Voltaire
123. “The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.”
— Voltaire
124. “The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.”
— Voltaire
125. “He was not the greatest of men but he was the greatest of kings.”
— Voltaire
126. “History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.”
— Voltaire
127. “There is no such thing as an accident. What we call by that name is the effect of some cause which we do not see.”
— Voltaire
128. “Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France.”
— Voltaire
129. “An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.”
— Voltaire
130. “The darkness is at its deepest. Just before the sunrise.”
— Voltaire
131. “Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.”
— Voltaire
132. “The hallmark of a free society is that I may totally disapprove of what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it until I die.”
— Voltaire
133. “Earth is an insane asylum, to which the other planets deport their lunatics.”
— Voltaire
134. “Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.”
— Voltaire
135. “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.”
— Voltaire
136. “Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.”
— Voltaire
137. “Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.”
— Voltaire
138. “Wine is the divine juice of September.”
— Voltaire
139. “Persistence with patience and prayer pays with profits, prosperity and peace of mind.”
— Voltaire
140. “Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.”
— Voltaire
141. “All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws.”
— Voltaire
142. “Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter.”
— Voltaire
143. “Clever tyrants are never punished.”
— Voltaire
144. “It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.”
— Voltaire
145. “The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.”
— Voltaire
146. “Nature has always had more force than education.”
— Voltaire
147. “You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.”
— Voltaire
148. “I have no morals, yet I am a very moral person.”
— Voltaire
149. “Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.”
— Voltaire
150. “He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.”
— Voltaire
151. “It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.”
— Voltaire
152. “When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. Tecumseh Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”
— Voltaire
153. “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.”
— Voltaire
154. “Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.”
— Voltaire
155. “The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.”
— Voltaire
156. “Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.”
— Voltaire
157. “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”
— Voltaire
158. “Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.”
— Voltaire
159. “One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.”
— Voltaire
160. “The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs.”
— Voltaire
161. “Time is man’s most precious asset. All men neglect it; all regret the loss of it; nothing can be done without it.”
— Voltaire
162. “I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.”
— Voltaire
163. “Most of my life has been one tragedy after another, most of which hasn’t happened.”
— Voltaire
164. “To hold a pen is to be at war.”
— Voltaire
165. “Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.”
— Voltaire
166. “Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them.”
— Voltaire
167. “Historians are gossips who tease the dead.”
— Voltaire
168. “Sensual pleasure passes and vanishes, but the friendship between us, the mutual confidence, the delight of the heart, the enchantment of the soul, these things do not perish and can never be destroyed.”
— Voltaire
169. “If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.”
— Voltaire
170. “Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.”
— Voltaire
171. “It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.”
— Voltaire
172. “To achieve a goal, a dream, a wish, you must plan it out for success!”
— Voltaire
173. “Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities.”
— Voltaire
174. “A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.”
— Voltaire
175. “I envy animals for two things – their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them.”
— Voltaire
176. “Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”
— Voltaire
177. “In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.”
— Voltaire
178. “Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.”
— Voltaire
179. “History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.”
— Voltaire
180. “The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.”
— Voltaire
181. “Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life.”
— Voltaire
182. “Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.”
— Voltaire
183. “The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart.”
— Voltaire
184. “Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?”
— Voltaire
185. “The passions are the winds which fill the sails of the vessel; they sink it at times, but without them it would be impossible to make way.”
— Voltaire
186. “The man who says to me, “Believe as I do, or God will damn you,” will presently say, “Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you.””
— Voltaire
187. “Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.”
— Voltaire
188. “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.”
— Voltaire
189. “History is the study of the world’s crime.”
— Voltaire
190. “Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!”
— Voltaire
191. “This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
— Voltaire
192. “The more you know, the less sure you are.”
— Voltaire
193. “Philosopher: A lover of wisdom, which is to say, Truth.”
— Voltaire
194. “By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.”
— Voltaire
195. “What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result he’s certain he’ll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?”
— Voltaire
196. “Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are.”
— Voltaire
197. “It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.”
— Voltaire
198. “Let us meet four times a year in a grand temple with music, and thank God for all his gifts. There is one sun. There is one God. Let us have one religion. Then all mankind will be brethren.”
— Voltaire
199. “The way to become boring is to say everything.”
— Voltaire
200. “We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.”
— Voltaire
