“The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.”
– Voltaire
“Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.”
– Voltaire
“We must cultivate our own garden. When man was put in the garden of Eden he was put there so that he should work, which proves that man was not born to rest.”
– Voltaire
“It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.”
– Voltaire
“Very learned women are to be found, in the same manner as female warriors but they are seldom or ever inventors.”
– Voltaire
“All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.”
– Voltaire
“I hate women because they always know where things are.”
– Voltaire
“To hold a pen is to be at war.”
– Voltaire
“It is forbidden to kill therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
– Voltaire
“To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”
– Voltaire
“I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.”
– Voltaire
“Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.”
– Voltaire
“In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.”
– Voltaire
“Perfection is attained by slow degrees it requires the hand of time.”
– Voltaire
“Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.”
– Voltaire
“Tears are the silent language of grief.”
– Voltaire
“Society therefore is an ancient as the world.”
– Voltaire
“He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.”
– Voltaire
“He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.”
– Voltaire
“To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”
– Voltaire
“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.”
– Voltaire
“Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.”
– Voltaire
“Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.”
– Voltaire
“When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.”
– Voltaire
“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.”
– Voltaire
“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.”
– Voltaire
“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”
– Voltaire
“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.”
– Voltaire
“Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.”
– Voltaire
“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”
– Voltaire