Quotes By Voltaire

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.

The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

A witty saying proves nothing.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.

Nature has always had more force than education.

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors; but they are seldom or ever inventors.

Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

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

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal.

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

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

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

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

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.