“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”
– Voltaire
“God gave us the gift of life it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
– 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 said that the present is pregnant with the future.”
– Voltaire
“The superfluous, a very necessary thing.”
– Voltaire
“Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.”
– Voltaire
“Fear follows crime and is its punishment.”
– Voltaire
“The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.”
– Voltaire
“What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.”
– Voltaire
“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.”
– Voltaire
“Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?”
– Voltaire
“Nature has always had more force than education.”
– Voltaire
“The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.”
– Voltaire
“It is vain for the coward to flee death follows close behind it is only by defying it that the brave escape.”
– Voltaire
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
– Voltaire
“Business is the salt of life.”
– Voltaire
“God gave us the gift of life it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
– Voltaire
“The best is the enemy of the good.”
– Voltaire
“The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.”
– Voltaire
“The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.”
– Voltaire
“God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.”
– Voltaire
“Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry always gets the best of the argument.”
– Voltaire
“It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.”
– Voltaire
“The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.”
– Voltaire
“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”
– Voltaire
“In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.”
– Voltaire
“The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.”
– Voltaire
“Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.”
– Voltaire
“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.”
– Voltaire
“We are rarely proud when we are alone.”
– Voltaire