Top 500 Voltaire Quotes (2024 Update)
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451. “The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.”

— Voltaire

452. “Go get yourself crucified and then rise on the third day.”

— Voltaire

453. “Needless to say since Christ’s expiation not one single Christian has been known to sin, or die.”

— Voltaire

454. “I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests.”

— Voltaire

455. “One feels like crawling on all fours after reading your work.”

— Voltaire

456. “Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.”

— Voltaire

457. “The abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault.”

— Voltaire

458. “All is but illusion and disaster.”

— Voltaire

459. “There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them.”

— Voltaire

460. “The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.”

— Voltaire

461. “There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics.”

— Voltaire

462. “There are men who can think no deeper than a fact.”

— Voltaire

463. “The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force.”

— Voltaire

464. “Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness.”

— Voltaire

465. “The policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a state equal to that of animals, whom nature has furnished with food, clothing, and shelter.”

— Voltaire

466. “Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.”

— Voltaire

467. “I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.”

— Voltaire

468. “Nothing is so common as to imitate one’s enemies, and to use their weapons.”

— Voltaire

469. “It has taken seas of blood to drown the idol of despotism, but the English do not think they bought their laws too dearly.”

— Voltaire

470. “Let us confess it: evil strides the world.”

— Voltaire

471. “Translations increase the faults of a work and spoil its beauties.”

— Voltaire

472. “To succeed in chaining the multitude, you must seem to wear the same fetters.”

— Voltaire

473. “The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.”

— Voltaire

474. “It is fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions.”

— Voltaire

475. “The Pope is an idol whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed.”

— Voltaire

476. “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.”

— Voltaire

477. “Luxury has been railed at for two thousand years, in verse and in prose, and it has always been loved.”

— Voltaire

478. “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.”

— Voltaire

479. “It was decided by the university of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes.”

— Voltaire

480. “History should be written as philosophy.”

— Voltaire

481. “For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm.”

— Voltaire

482. “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.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

484. “He who cannot shine by thought, seeks to bring himself into notice by a witticism.”

— Voltaire

485. “The more estimable the offender, the greater the torment.”

— Voltaire

486. “I never approved either the errors of his book, or the trivial truths he so vigorously laid down. I have, however, stoutly taken his side when absurd men have condemned him for these same truths.”

— Voltaire

487. “The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demigod.”

— Voltaire

488. “Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel that when we find one who is only weak, we are too happy.”

— Voltaire

489. “It is not enough to be exceptionally mad, licentious and fanatical in order to win a great reputation; it is still necessary to arrive on the scene at the right time.”

— Voltaire

490. “I swear that, not being able to be yours, I will belong to no one.”

— Voltaire

491. “Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them?”

— Voltaire

492. “If there are atheists, who is to be blamed if not the mercenary tyrants of souls who, in revolting us against their swindles, compel some feeble spirits to deny the God whom these monsters dishonour?”

— Voltaire

493. “Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees.”

— Voltaire

494. “Often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them. -Francois.”

— Voltaire

495. “Feeble verses are those which sin not against rules, but against genius.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

497. “The harmony of a concert, to which you listen with delight, must have on certain classes of minute animals the effect of terrible thunder; perhaps it kills them.”

— Voltaire

498. “The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great that every thing must soon be reduced to extracts and dictionaries.”

— Voltaire

499. “Whosoever does not know how to recognize the faults of great men is incapable of estimating their perfections.”

— Voltaire

500. “What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them?”

— Voltaire