Quotes from Voltaire

Slavery is also as ancient as war, and war as human nature.

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

It is ourselves alone that make our days lucky or unlucky. Away, then, with a vain prejudice, the invention of the priesthood, which has been transmitted by our ancestors to an ignorant people.

A good imitation is the most perfect originality.

Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.

When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others and it becomes the property of all.

The infinitely little have pride infinitely great.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is.

Better is the enemy of the good.

Many are destined to reason wrongly; others, not to reason at all: and others to persecute those who do reason.

I never was ruined but twice - once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

The secret of being tiresome is in telling everything.

Tears are the silent language of grief.

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

You (Pindar) who possessed the talent of speaking much without saying anything.

Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.

The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force than the minds of a single village.

Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.