Voltaire Quotes

It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.

Fear could never make a virtue.

Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings and speech only to conceal their thoughts.

But for what purpose was the earth formed? asked Candide. To drive us mad, replied Martin.

I read only to please myself, and enjoy only what suits my taste.

If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?

Let us cultivate our garden.

Let us work without reasoning,' said Martin; 'it is the only way to make life endurable.

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

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

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

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions.

Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.

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.

Doubt is not a pleasant state but certainty is a ridiculous one.