Voltaire Quotes (page 2)

1694-1778, French Historian, Writer
quotes
119
topics
12
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“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.”
God
“We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.”
DisputedNo reliable early source found for Voltaire. · evidenceLife and Living
“The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.”
Character
“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”
Problems
“We owe respect to the living. To the dead we owe only truth.”
Respectability
“We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.”
DisputedNo reliable early source found for Voltaire. · evidenceManners
“Judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers.”
Questions
“He who dies before many witnesses always does so with courage.”
Courage
“What a heavy burden is a name that has become famous too soon.”
Fame
“Truth is a fruit which should not be plucked until it is ripe.”
Truth
“By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.”
Appreciation
“It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.”
Self-love
“He who doesn't have the spirit of his time, has all its misery.”
Spirit and Spirituality
“You can never correct your work well until you have forgotten it.”
Writers and Writing
“To announce truths is an infallible receipt for being persecuted.”
Truth
“Work banishes those three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty.”
Work
“Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.”
Fate
“It is fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions.”
Fashion
“When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
Money
“He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.”
Wisdom
“The Pope is an idol whose hands are tied and whose feet are kissed.”
Churches
“The true character of liberty is independence, maintained by force.”
Freedom
“History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead.”
History and Historians
“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”
Questions
“To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”
Death and Dying
“Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.”
DisputedNo reliable early source found for Voltaire. · evidenceLove
“Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures.”
Pleasure
“It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.”
Poetry and Poets
“God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.”
MisattributedListed as misattributed to Voltaire; no source in their known works. · evidenceGod
“Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.”
Superstition