Top 500 Voltaire Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “We cannot wish for that we know not.”

— Voltaire

352. “Your destiny is that of a man, your vows those of a god.”

— Voltaire

353. “I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.”

— Voltaire

354. “It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion.”

— Voltaire

355. “I read these words which are the sum of all moral philosophy, and which cut short all the disputes of the casuists: When in doubt if an action is good or bad, refrain.”

— Voltaire

356. “All that is very well,” answered Candide, “but let us cultivate our garden.”

— Voltaire

357. “Men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent.”

— Voltaire

358. “Happiness is not the portion of man.”

— Voltaire

359. “Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most.”

— Voltaire

360. “What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason.”

— Voltaire

361. “The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities is an enthusiast; the man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic.”

— Voltaire

362. “I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.”

— Voltaire

363. “Twenty-volume folios will never make a revolution. It’s the little pocket pamphlets that are to be feared.”

— Voltaire

364. “War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not color his crime with the pretext of justice.”

— Voltaire

365. “A torch lighted in the forests of America set all Europe in conflagration.”

— Voltaire

366. “A woman can keep one secret the secret of her age.”

— Voltaire

367. “He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.”

— Voltaire

368. “Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.”

— Voltaire

369. “The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.”

— Voltaire

370. “Slavery is also as ancient as war, and war as human nature.”

— Voltaire

371. “Let all the laws be clear, uniform and precise for interpreting laws is almost always to corrupt them.”

— Voltaire

372. “If there had been a censorship of the press in Rome we should have had today neither Horace nor Juvenal, nor the philosophical writings of Cicero.”

— Voltaire

373. “In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.”

— Voltaire

374. “A good imitation is the most perfect originality.”

— Voltaire

375. “Mortals are equal; their mask differs.”

— Voltaire

376. “Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances. It is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.”

— Voltaire

377. “He who is involved in ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for reality, and his own imagination for prophesy, is a fanatical novice of great hope and promise, and will soon advance to the higher stage and kill men for the love of God.”

— Voltaire

378. “Independence in the end is the fruit of injustice.”

— Voltaire

379. “Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares absurd, beware, lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life.”

— Voltaire

380. “Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.”

— Voltaire

381. “When his highness sends a ship to Egypt, does he trouble his head whether the mice on board are at their ease or not?”

— Voltaire

382. “Chess is a game which reflects most honor on human wit.”

— Voltaire

383. “Thought depends absolutely on the stomach, but in spite of that, those who have the best stomachs are not the best thinkers.”

— Voltaire

384. “Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is.”

— Voltaire

385. “I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left.”

— Voltaire

386. “He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.”

— Voltaire

387. “I serve your Beaune to my friends, but your Volnay I keep for myself.”

— Voltaire

388. “We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard.”

— Voltaire

389. “When a man is in love, jealous, and just whipped by the Inquisition, he is no longer himself.”

— Voltaire

390. “The question of good and evil remains in irremediable chaos for those who seek to fathom it in reality. It is mere mental sport to the disputants, who are captives that play with their chains.”

— Voltaire

391. “When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy.”

— Voltaire

392. “Our priests are not what a silly populace supposes; all their learning consists in our credulity.”

— Voltaire

393. “A good cook is a certain slow poisoner, if you are not temperate.”

— Voltaire

394. “The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks.”

— Voltaire

395. “The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.”

— Voltaire

396. “The worthy administrators of justice are like a cat set to take care of a cheese, lest it should be gnawed by the mice. One bite of the cat does more damage to the cheese than twenty mice can do.”

— Voltaire

397. “To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.”

— Voltaire

398. “In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.”

— Voltaire

399. “All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.”

— Voltaire

400. “The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor.”

— Voltaire