Top 500 Voltaire Quotes (2025 Update)
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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. “Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.”

— Voltaire

105. “Love truth, but pardon error.”

— Voltaire

106. “You have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you.”

— Voltaire

107. “Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?”

— Voltaire

108. “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

109. “Where some states possess an army, the Prussian Army possesses a state.”

— Voltaire

110. “God created sex. Priests created marriage.”

— Voltaire

111. “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”

— Voltaire

112. “In France every man is either an anvil or a hammer; he is a beater or must be beaten.”

— Voltaire

113. “Errors flies from mouth to mouth, from pen to pen, and to destroy it takes ages.”

— Voltaire

114. “Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.”

— Voltaire

115. “There can be no happiness without good health.”

— Voltaire

116. “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

117. “It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.”

— Voltaire

118. “Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.”

— Voltaire

119. “It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.”

— Voltaire

120. “Changing a habit is hard work. But it’s harder to find work that would be more fulfilling.”

— Voltaire

121. “History is only the pattern of silken slippers descending the stairs to the thunder of hobnailed boots climbing upward from below.”

— Voltaire

122. “Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France.”

— Voltaire

123. “Virtuous men alone possess friends.”

— Voltaire

124. “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

125. “Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.”

— Voltaire

126. “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

127. “Earth is an insane asylum, to which the other planets deport their lunatics.”

— Voltaire

128. “Shun idleness. It is rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.”

— Voltaire

129. “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

130. “The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.”

— Voltaire

131. “Nature has always had more force than education.”

— Voltaire

132. “He was not the greatest of men but he was the greatest of kings.”

— Voltaire

133. “An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.”

— Voltaire

134. “The darkness is at its deepest. Just before the sunrise.”

— Voltaire

135. “Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.”

— Voltaire

136. “Persistence with patience and prayer pays with profits, prosperity and peace of mind.”

— Voltaire

137. “Reading nurtures the soul, and an enlightened friend brings it solace.”

— Voltaire

138. “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

139. “It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.”

— Voltaire

140. “Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

142. “You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.”

— Voltaire

143. “Wine is the divine juice of September.”

— Voltaire

144. “Is politics nothing other than the art of deliberately lying?”

— Voltaire

145. “He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.”

— Voltaire

146. “All men have equal rights to liberty, to their property, and to the protection of the laws.”

— Voltaire

147. “Indolence is sweet, and its consequences bitter.”

— Voltaire

148. “Clever tyrants are never punished.”

— Voltaire

149. “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

150. “Time is man’s most precious asset. All men neglect it; all regret the loss of it; nothing can be done without it.”

— Voltaire