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Life Quotes by Voltaire

65 Life quotes by Voltaire

All Life quotes Voltaire’s page

Voltaire says God gave us the gift of life, but we must learn to live well. He notes that hope and sleep are comforts for life’s many cares, and he observes that many people curse their existence repeatedly. He also jokes that if life existed on other planets, Earth would be the Universe’s insane asylum.

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This is no time to make new enemies.

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Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.

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Paradise is where I am

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Almost all life depends on probabilities.

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My life is a struggle.

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Man is free at the instant he wants to be.

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“Everything is not as good as in El-Dorado; but everything is not so bad.”

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The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.

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Shun idleness. It is rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.

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

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To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

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

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Come! you presence will either give me life or kill me with pleasure.

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Superstition sets the whole world in flames; philosophy quenches them.

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Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell…

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Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must…

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I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

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Give me the patience for the small things of life, courage for the great trials of life. Help me to do my…

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Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to…

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I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I…

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Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that…

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What a pessimist you are!" exclaimed Candide. "That is because I know what life is," said Martin.

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And ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed his existence…

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Men who have seen life and death... as an unbroken continuum, the swinging pendulum, have been able to move as freely into…

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When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food,…

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All is a miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of stars,…

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I believe that there never was a creator of a philosophical system who did not confess at the end of his life…

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“What can be more absurd than choosing to carry a burden that one really wants to throw to the ground? To detest,…

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What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence…

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“Divert yourself, and ask each passenger to tell his story, and if there is one of them all who has not cursed…

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I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is…

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I have been a hundred times on the point of killing myself, but still was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is…

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“I have been studying for forty years, which is to say forty wasted years; I teach others yet am ignorant of everything;…

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“I've wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but I still love life. That ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our most…

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“I tried to believe in God, but I confess to you that God meant nothing in my life, and that in my…

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Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

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Whatever you do, crush the infamous thing, and love those who love you.

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My life's dream has been a perpetual nightmare.

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The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks.

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We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth.

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More by Voltaire

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

Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked.

History is the study of the world's crime

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part, the rest are lost in the multitude.

Meslier was the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the Christian religion.

Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror." "Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion…

Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them

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

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

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

It is not inequality which is the real misfortune, it is dependence.

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

Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need