Top 500 Voltaire Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.”

— Voltaire

152. “I have no morals, yet I am a very moral person.”

— Voltaire

153. “A little evil is often necessary for obtaining a great good.”

— Voltaire

154. “Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.”

— Voltaire

155. “History is the study of the world’s crime.”

— Voltaire

156. “It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.”

— Voltaire

157. “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

158. “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.”

— Voltaire

159. “To hold a pen is to be at war.”

— Voltaire

160. “Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.”

— Voltaire

161. “Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively.”

— Voltaire

162. “The man who, in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week.”

— Voltaire

163. “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”

— Voltaire

164. “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

165. “To achieve a goal, a dream, a wish, you must plan it out for success!”

— Voltaire

166. “One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.”

— Voltaire

167. “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

168. “Providence has given us hope and sleep as a compensation for the many cares of life.”

— Voltaire

169. “It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.”

— Voltaire

170. “The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart.”

— Voltaire

171. “Most of my life has been one tragedy after another, most of which hasn’t happened.”

— Voltaire

172. “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.”

— Voltaire

173. “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

174. “Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.”

— Voltaire

175. “Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them.”

— Voltaire

176. “If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.”

— Voltaire

177. “Historians are gossips who tease the dead.”

— Voltaire

178. “Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.”

— Voltaire

179. “It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.”

— Voltaire

180. “A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.”

— Voltaire

181. “Men will commit atrocities as long as they believe absurdities.”

— Voltaire

182. “I envy animals for two things – their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them.”

— Voltaire

183. “Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.”

— Voltaire

184. “In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.”

— Voltaire

185. “Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.”

— Voltaire

186. “Better is the Enemy of Good.”

— Voltaire

187. “The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.”

— Voltaire

188. “History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up.”

— Voltaire

189. “Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.”

— Voltaire

190. “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

191. “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

192. “Superstition sets the whole world in flames, but philosophy douses them.”

— Voltaire

193. “Another century and there will not be a Bible on earth!”

— Voltaire

194. “This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”

— Voltaire

195. “Answer me, you who believe that animals are only machines. Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all?”

— Voltaire

196. “The more you know, the less sure you are.”

— Voltaire

197. “Philosopher: A lover of wisdom, which is to say, Truth.”

— Voltaire

198. “By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.”

— Voltaire

199. “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

200. “Dogs, monkeys, and parrots are a thousand times less miserable than we are.”

— Voltaire