Top 500 Voltaire Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

153. “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

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

159. “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

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

— Voltaire

161. “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

162. “I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I won one.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

165. “To hold a pen is to be at war.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

167. “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

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

186. “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

187. “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

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

196. “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

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

— Voltaire

198. “It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.”

— Voltaire

199. “Let us meet four times a year in a grand temple with music, and thank God for all his gifts. There is one sun. There is one God. Let us have one religion. Then all mankind will be brethren.”

— Voltaire

200. “The way to become boring is to say everything.”

— Voltaire