Voltaire (1694-1778) quotes

• A witty saying proves nothing.
• All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.
• All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
• Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
• Anything too stupid to be said is sung.
• Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
• As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
• Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law.
• Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.
• Common sense is not so common.
• 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.
• Every man is guilty of the good he did not do.
• Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.
• Everything's fine today, this is our illusion.
• Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
• Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
• God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.
• He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.
• I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
• If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
• It is better to risk saving a guilty man that to condemn an innocent one.
• It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
• It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
• It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
• It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
• Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
• 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.
• Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
• Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
• No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
• Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
• One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.
• Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plague or earthquakes.
• Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.
• Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.
• Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
• The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
• The safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.
• The secret of being a bore.. is to tell everything.
• The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.
• Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the priviledge to do so, too.
• Time, which alone makes the reputaiton of men, ends by making their defects respectable.
• To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
• We are rarely proud when we are alone.
• When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.
• Whoever serves his country well has no need for ancestors.