Voltaire

Quotes

• “Another possible source for the quote was proposed by Norbert Guterman, editor of "A Book of French Quotations," who not...”
• “It is a serious question among them whether they [Africans] are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from ...”
• “C'est d'abord une remarque très-importante que Pythagore alla de Samos au Gange pour apprendre la géométrie, il y a envi...”
• “C'est une grande question parmi eux s'ils [les africains] sont descendus des singes ou si les singes sont venus d'eux. N...”
• “Go into the London Stock Exchange - a more respectable place than many a court - and you will see representatives from a...”
• “La vertu suppose la liberté, comme le transport d'un fardeau suppose la force active. Dans la contrainte point de vertu,...”
• “Barretti, who is an ingenious writer, remarks that almost every nation hates its neighbours, without knowing the reason ...”
• “O God, whom the world misjudges, and whom everything declares! listen to the last words that my lips pronounce! If I hav...”
• “It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from th...”
• “Virtue supposes liberty, as the carrying of a burden supposes active force. Under coercion there is no virtue, and witho...”
• “It is in works of this nature that Germany is pre-eminent among the European nations; and it is long since those who are...”
• “Not a day goes by without our using the word optimism, coined by Voltaire against Leibniz, who had demonstrated (in spit...”
• “Il faut vingt ans pour mener l'homme de l'état de plante où il est dans le ventre de sa mère, et de l'état de pur animal...”
• “Garantissez-moi de mes amis, écrivait Gourville proscrit et fugitif, je saurai me défendre de mes ennemis. ("Defend me f...”
• “Note: Voltaire cites this saying in his poem "La Bégueule" ("The prude woman") while ascribing it to an unnamed "Italian...”
• “As he sup'd one night with Mr. Pope at Twickenham he fell into a fit of swearing and blasphemy about his constitution. O...”
• “Letter to Frederick William, Prince of Prussia (28 November 1770). English: in S. G. Tallentyre (ed.), Voltaire in His L...”
• “All of the other people have committed crimes, the Jews are the only ones who have boasted about committing them. They a...”
• “Regarding Bible-printing in Voltaire's homes, Theodore Besterman (former director of the "Institut et Muse Voltaire" in ...”
• “Il est encore plus facile de juger de l'esprit d'un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses. (It is easier to judge...”
• “Le doute n'est pas un état bien agréable, mais l'assurance est un état ridicule.Ce qui révolte le plus dans le Système d...”
• “It takes twenty years to bring man from the state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in his first infan...”
• “He looked on everything as imitation. The most original writers, he said, borrowed one from another. Boyardo has imitate...”
• “Tous les autres peuples ont commis des crimes, les Juifs sont les seuls qui s'en soient vantés. Ils sont tous nés avec l...”
• “A variation on this remark can be found in the same notebook: Men who look for happiness are like drunkards who cannot f...”
• “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature [of d'...”
• “Friedrich Max Müller ascribes the same French to Voltaire in October 1851: "Review of Franz Bopp, Comparative Grammar of...”
• “In George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, act II, there is the following dialogue:TANNER: Let me remind you that Voltai...”
• “It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn ge...”
• “A testimony is sufficient when it rests on: 1st. A great number of very sensible witnesses who agree in having seen well...”
• “Lettres sur l'origine des sciences et sur celle des peuples de l'Asie adressés à M. de Voltaire par M. Bailly et précédé...”
• “For the background of the quote see this source: Yeh, Anthony (July 3, 2011). "What did Voltaire mean when he said that ...”
• “Elle [la nation juive] ose étaler une haine irréconciliable contre toutes les nations; elle se révolte contre tous ses m...”
• “The reasonable worship of a just God who punishes and rewards, would undoubtedly contribute to the happiness of men; but...”
• “Philosophers and men of letters have done more for mankind than Orpheus, Hercules, or Theseus; for it is more meritoriou...”
• “Likewise, there is much truth in Voltaire's enthusiastic Orientalist assumption that unlike Judaism, Christianity and Is...”
• “Ne ressemblons-nous pas presque tous à ce vieux général de quatre-vingt-dix ans, qui, ayant rencontré de jeunes officier...”
• “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, letter to Leopold Mozart (3 July 1778), in The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, t...”
• “O Truth! pure and sacred virgin, when wilt thou be worthily revered? O Goddess who instructs us, why didst thou put thy ...”
• “This quote has also been attributed to Joseph Addison. In The Spectator, 21 March 1711, Addison wrote of "an establish'd...”
• “Ne peut-on pas remonter jusqu'à ces anciens scélérats, fondateurs illustres de la superstition et du fanatisme, qui, les...”
• “This remark also appears in a letter to Marie-Louise Denis (22 May 1752): To hold a pen is to be at war. This world is o...”
• “Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoure...”
• “The institution of religion exists only to keep mankind in order, and to make men merit the goodness of God by their vir...”
• “If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supr...”
• “Tous les hommes seraient donc nécessairement égaux, s'ils étaient sans besoins. La misère attachée à notre espèce subord...”
• “All men would then be necessarily equal, if they were without needs. It is the poverty connected with our species which ...”
• “O Voltaire! O humaneness! O nonsense! There is something about "truth", about the search for truth; and when a human bei...”
• “If as much care were taken to perpetuate a race of fine men as is done to prevent the mixture of ignoble blood in horses...”
• “John Considine (January 2009) ""Les voyelles ne font rien, et les consonnes fort peu de chose": On the history of Voltai...”