Top 500 Voltaire Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “He who has not the spirit of this age, has all the misery of it.”

— Voltaire

202. “We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.”

— Voltaire

203. “Men appear to prefer ruining one another’s fortunes, and cutting each other’s throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.”

— Voltaire

204. “I know of nothing more laughable than a doctor who does not die of old age.”

— Voltaire

205. “The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.”

— Voltaire

206. “A physician is one who pours drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less.”

— Voltaire

207. “There are no sects in geometry.”

— Voltaire

208. “Inspiration: A peculiar effect of divine flatulence emitted by the Holy Spirit which hisses into the ears of a few chosen of God.”

— Voltaire

209. “No, nothing has the power to part me from you; our love is based upon virtue, and will last as long as our lives.”

— Voltaire

210. “What can we say with certainty?”

— Voltaire

211. “We know that all the arts are brothers, that each of them illuminates another, and that a universal light results.”

— Voltaire

212. “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

213. “A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity.”

— Voltaire

214. “You write your name in the snow Yet say nothing.”

— Voltaire

215. “How inexpressible is the meanness of being a hypocrite! how horrible is it to be a mischievous and malignant hypocrite.”

— Voltaire

216. “Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government?”

— Voltaire

217. “If we would destroy the Christian religion, we must first of all destroy man’s belief in the Bible.”

— Voltaire

218. “Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.”

— Voltaire

219. “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

220. “It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice.”

— Voltaire

221. “What is madness? To have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them.”

— Voltaire

222. “Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.”

— Voltaire

223. “He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”

— Voltaire

224. “In the matter of taxation, every privilege is an injustice.”

— Voltaire

225. “Fear follows crime and is its punishment.”

— Voltaire

226. “The Jews are of all peoples the grosses, the most ferocious, the most fanatical, and the most absurd.”

— Voltaire

227. “Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.”

— Voltaire

228. “He is lifeless that is faultless.”

— Voltaire

229. “History is only the register of crimes and misfortunes.”

— Voltaire

230. “Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.”

— Voltaire

231. “Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.”

— Voltaire

232. “To the wicked, everything serves as pretext.”

— Voltaire

233. “The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.”

— Voltaire

234. “Sometimes we are less unhappy in being deceived by those we love, than in being undeceived by them.”

— Voltaire

235. “What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity.”

— Voltaire

236. “She blushed and so did he. She greeted him in a faltering voice, and he spoke to her without knowing what he was saying.”

— Voltaire

237. “True power and true politeness are above vanity.”

— Voltaire

238. “Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.”

— Voltaire

239. “The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good are the two most important aims of philosophy.”

— Voltaire

240. “Never having been able to succeed in the world, he took his revenge by speaking ill of it.”

— Voltaire

241. “The superstitious man is to the rogue what the slave is to the tyrant.”

— Voltaire

242. “Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.”

— Voltaire

243. “Self love is the instrument of our preservation.”

— Voltaire

244. “The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.”

— Voltaire

245. “Adultery is an evil only inasmuch as it is a theft; but we do not steal that which is given to us.”

— Voltaire

246. “How I like the boldness of the English, how I like the people who say what they think!”

— Voltaire

247. “He who seeks truth should be of no country.”

— Voltaire

248. “Every man can educate himself. It’s shameful to put one’s mind into the hands of those whom you wouldn’t entrust with your money. Dare to think for yourself.”

— Voltaire

249. “If it’s too silly to be said, it can always be sung.”

— Voltaire

250. “Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.”

— Voltaire