In the tapestry of literary brilliance, few figures stand as prominently as Voltaire, the 18th-century French philosopher, writer, and advocate of freedom of speech and religious tolerance. His words, like beacons of enlightenment, have transcended the confines of their time, resonating across centuries to illuminate the minds of generations. In this exploration of the profound wisdom encapsulated in Voltaire’s quotes, we embark on a journey to unravel the layers of insight, wit, and unyielding critique that characterize his enduring legacy.
Voltaire’s pen was mightier than a sword, for it wielded not only the power to cut through the dogmas of his era but also to inspire change and ignite the flames of intellectual revolution. Through his plays, essays, and correspondence, Voltaire fearlessly challenged the prevailing norms, urging society to question authority and embrace reason. In this blog post, we delve into the essence of Voltaire’s thoughts, examining how his words continue to serve as both a mirror reflecting the complexities of the human condition and a torch guiding us toward a more enlightened future.
Join us as we navigate the labyrinth of Voltaire’s quotations, each a crystalline expression of his philosophy. From biting satire to poignant reflections on human nature, his words are as relevant today as they were in the Enlightenment era. As we embark on this exploration, let us uncover the timeless relevance of Voltaire’s insights and appreciate the enduring impact of a mind that dared to challenge the status quo.
Let’s Read Famous Voltaire Quotes On Freedom, Democracy, Love, Education, Motivational Quotes Of Voltaire In English, Voltaire Thoughts In English.
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Famous Voltaire Quotes -:
~ Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.
~ History never repeats itself. Man always does.
~ The heart has its own reasons that reason can’t understand.
~ Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.
~ I hate women because they always know where things are.
~ I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health.
~ Men argue. Nature acts.
~ Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
~ Dare to think for yourself.
~ One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
~ Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.
~ The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.
~ Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.
~ The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else’s eyes.
~ Let us cultivate our garden.
~ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.
~ It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
~ Love truth, but pardon error.
~ Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.
~ To hold a pen is to be at war.
~ Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.
~ God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.
~ There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
~ 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.
~ Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
~ Discord is the great ill of mankind; and tolerance is the only remedy for it.
~ It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
~ 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.
~ What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature.
~ Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
~ Perfect is the enemy of good.
~ A witty saying proves nothing.
~ Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.
~ Minds differ still more than faces.
~ The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.
Motivational Quotes Of Voltaire -:
~ Common sense is not so common.
~ Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies.
~ In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.
~ My soul is the mirror of the universe, and my body is its frame.
~ I hold firmly to my original views. After all I am a philosopher.
~ If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new.
~ Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
~ Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.
~ We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know.
~ Only your friends steal your books.
~ A State can be no better than the citizens of which it is composed. Our labour now is not to mould States but make citizens.
~ It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.
~ If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.
~ Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.
~ If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other’s throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace.
~ Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
~ Tears are the silent language of grief.
~ I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.
~ We are rarely proud when we are alone.
~ Man is free at the instant he wants to be.
~ When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.
~ The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.
~ A man loved by a beautiful woman will always get out of trouble.
~ 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.
~ When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
~ Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
Voltaire Thoughts -:
~ All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
~ Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
~ The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.
~ Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.
~ Injustice in the end produces independence.
~ The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
~ It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.
~ Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
~ No opinion is worth burning your neighbor for.
~ I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests.
~ It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.
~ Theology is to religion what poisons are to food.
~ The infinitely small have a pride infinitely great.
~ God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
~ The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.
~ The most important decision you will ever make is to be in a good mood.
~ Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.
~ What is history? The lie that everyone agrees on.
~ Our labour preserves us from three great evils — weariness, vice, and want.
~ May God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.
~ It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.
~ In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
~ If there’s life on other planets, then the earth is the Universe’s insane asylum.
~ The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.
Voltaire Inspirational Quotes -:
~ To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid – one must also be polite.
~ We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization.
~ One always begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and by superior enlightenment one often reverts in the end to the simple. Such is the course of human intelligence.
~ Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?
~ God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.
~ The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.
~ No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
~ It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
~ Wherever my travels may lead, paradise is where I am.
~ Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
~ All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers.
~ History is the study of the world’s crime.
~ 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.
~ The more a man knows, the less he talks.
~ Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
~ Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them.
~ It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.
~ There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.
~ It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.
~ We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
~ Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.
~ I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?
~ One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.
~ I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.
~ Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
~ The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.
~ To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
~ He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
~ 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.
~ It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
~ Our character is composed of our ideas and our feelings: and, since it has been proved that we give ourselves neither feelings nor ideas, our character does not depend on us. If it did depend on us, there is nobody who would not be perfect. If one does not reflect, one thinks oneself master of everything; but when one does reflect, one realizes that one is master of nothing.
~ Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all.
~ Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
Voltaire Motivational Quotes -:
~ The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
~ Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
~ 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.
~ 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?
~ It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
~ Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities.
~ The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
~ The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
~ Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.
~ All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
~ Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
~ I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.
~ The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.
~ Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.
~ Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.
~ Faith consists in believing what reason cannot.
~ I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.
~ Beware of the words ‘internal security,’ for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor.
~ All is for the best in the best of possible worlds.
~ If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
~ 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.
~ Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn’t illegal.
~ Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.
~ It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
~ 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.
~ Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.
~ The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks.
~ If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
~ Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.
~ Don’t think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money.
~ I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.
~ One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
~ No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking.
~ It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother’s womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.
~ 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.
~ It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.
~ I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
~ If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?
~ It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.
Final Thoughts -:
In conclusion, delving into the vast reservoir of Voltaire’s wisdom through these 100+ Voltaire quotes has been a journey through the corridors of enlightenment, wit, and timeless insight. Voltaire’s words, though penned centuries ago, continue to resonate with a profound relevance that transcends the bounds of time. His keen observations on life, philosophy, freedom, and human nature serve as a beacon, guiding us through the complexities of existence.
As we reflect on these Voltaire quotes, it becomes evident that Voltaire’s intellectual legacy is an enduring source of inspiration and contemplation. Whether challenging the status quo, advocating for reason, or championing the importance of tolerance, his words carry a timeless weight that encourages us to question, learn, and evolve.
In a world that constantly grapples with change and uncertainty, Voltaire quotes serve as pillars of wisdom, inviting us to critically examine our beliefs, engage in open dialogue, and embrace the pursuit of knowledge. Let these Voltaire quotes not only be a testament to Voltaire’s brilliance but also catalysts for our own intellectual growth and a reminder that the quest for truth and enlightenment is an ongoing journey.
As we carry forward the torch of Voltaire’s ideas, may we find inspiration in his words to navigate the challenges of our time with grace, resilience, and an unwavering commitment to the principles that stand the test of time. Let us embrace the spirit of free thought, reason, and intellectual courage that Voltaire so ardently championed, and in doing so, contribute to a world shaped by the enduring power of enlightened ideas.
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