Top 500 Voltaire Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “Go get yourself crucified and then rise on the third day.”

— Voltaire

452. “He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.”

— Voltaire

453. “It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

455. “To announce truths is an infallible receipt for being persecuted.”

— Voltaire

456. “History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes. L’histoire n’est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs.”

— Voltaire

457. “Virtue debases itself in justifying itself.”

— Voltaire

458. “I loved him as we always love for the first time; with idolatry and wild passion.”

— Voltaire

459. “True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others.”

— Voltaire

460. “Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege.”

— Voltaire

461. “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

462. “The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

467. “All is but illusion and disaster.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

470. “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

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

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

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

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

— Voltaire

484. “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

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

— Voltaire

486. “History should be written as philosophy.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

488. “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

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

492. “One day everything will be well, that is our hope. Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.”

— Voltaire

493. “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

494. “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

495. “Il faut cultiver son jardin.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

497. “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

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire