The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
It is the poverty connected with our species which subordinates one man to another. It is not inequality which is the real… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
You see, Mademoiselle, I have experience, I know the world. To pass the time, why don't you ask every passenger to tell… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
You're a bitter man," said Candide. That's because I've lived," said Martin. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
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… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Man can have only a certain number of teeth, hair and ideas; there comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth,… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
When men do not have healthy notions of the Divinity, false ideas supplant them, just as in bad times one uses counterfeit… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity — Voltaire Copy Share Image
What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideas of pleasure; for he who has but a moment of… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that as a result… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one's fatherland is to wish evil to one's neighbors.… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
I have seen men incapable of the sciences, but never any incapable of virtue. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Men who have seen life and death... as an unbroken continuum, the swinging pendulum, have been able to move as freely into… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
He who is involved in ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for reality, and his own imagination for prophesy, is a fanatical… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
The policy of man consists, at first, in endeavoring to arrive at a state equal to that of animals, whom nature has… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Every sensible man, every honest man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. But what shall we substitute in its place? you… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Fanaticism, to which men are so much inclined, has always served not only to render them more brutalized but more wicked. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part, the rest are lost in the multitude. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Meslier was the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the Christian religion. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror." "Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion… — Voltaire Copy Share Image
Being unable to make people more reasonable, I preferred to be happy away from them — Voltaire Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. — Voltaire Copy Share Image
