Voltaire

What can we say with certainty?

— Voltaire

It is up to us to cultivate our garden.

— Voltaire

God created woman to tame man.

— Voltaire

Friends should be preferred to kings.

— Voltaire

Happiness is not the portion of man.

— Voltaire

What is not in nature can never be true.

— Voltaire

Perfect is the enemy of good

— Voltaire

The road to the heart is the ear

— Voltaire

“Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

Dont think money does everything or you are going to end up doing everything for money.

— Voltaire

One feels like crawling on all fours after reading your work.

— Voltaire

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

— Voltaire

“If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated." ( Notebooks )”

— Voltaire

Nature has always had more force than education.

— Voltaire

“In every author, let us distinguish the man from his work.”

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

It is not a mistress I have lost but half of myself, a soul for which my soul seems to have been…

— Voltaire

Whenever an important event, a revolution, or a calamity turns to the profit of the church, such is always signalised as the…

— Voltaire

Martin in particular concluded that man was born to live either in the convulsions of misery, or in the lethargy of boredom.

— Voltaire

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

— Voltaire

I am the best-natured creature in the world, and yet I have already killed three, and of these three two were priests.

— Voltaire

The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that it seems to be independent of all…

— Voltaire

The punishment of criminals should be of use; when a man is hanged he is good for nothing

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

Nothing could be smarter, more splendid, more brilliant, better drawn up than two armies. Trumpets, fifes, hautboys, drums, cannons, formed a harmony…

— Voltaire

What will the preachers say? .. to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a…

— Voltaire

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is…

— Voltaire

It is ourselves alone that make our days lucky or unlucky. Away, then, with a vain prejudice, the invention of the priesthood,…

— Voltaire

In this country [England] it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others. The reference is…

— Voltaire

Je ne suis pas d'accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je d‚fendrai jusqu'... la mort le droit que vous avez de…

— Voltaire

It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at…

— Voltaire

“The shrieks were coming from two quite naked girls, who were pursued by a pair of apes snapping at their bottoms. [...]…

— Voltaire

“It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for…

— Voltaire

“Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars,…

— Voltaire

“After the earthquake, which had destroyed three–fourths of the city of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no means…

— Voltaire

“At a great distance appeared with the same pomp the sheep of Thebes, the dog of Bubastis, the cat of Phoebe, the…

— Voltaire

Shakespeare, who was considered the English Corneille, flourished at about the time of Lope de Vega. He had a strong and fertile…

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire

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

— Voltaire