Voltaire Quotes 1–30 of 159 Quotes

François-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), most famous under his pen name Voltaire, was a French writer, deist and philosopher.

Below are 30 of 159 sourced Voltaire quotes. Sources and related information appear under each quote. Use the 'Cite this quote' link to get citation references.

“La vertu s'avilit à se justifier.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Virtue is debased by self-justification.
 • Oedipe, act II, scene IV (1718)

“On doit des égards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la vérité.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: We should be considerate to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth.
 • Letter to M. de Grenonville (1719)

“C'est un poids bien pesant qu'un nom trop tôt fameux.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Quite a heavy weight, a name too quickly famous.
 • La Henriade, chant troisième, l.41 (1722)

“L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'être.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Man is free at the instant he wants to be.
 • Source Brutus, act II, scene I (1730)

“Les mortels sont égaux; ce n'est pas la naissance, C'est la seule vertu qui fait la différence.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: All mortals are equal; it is not their birth,
But virtue itself that makes the difference.
Ériphyle Act II, scene I (1732); these lines were also later used in Voltaire's Mahomet, Act I, scene IV (1741)
• Variant translations:
• Men are equal; it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes them differ.
 • As quoted in Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors (1866) edited by Craufurd Tait Ramage, p. 363
• Men are equal; it is not birth
But virtue that makes the difference

“On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.
 • "Commentaires sur Corneille," Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire (1827)

“Les anciens Romains élevaient des prodiges d'architecture pour faire combattre des bêtes.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture for wild beasts to fight in.
 • Letter addressed to "un premier commis" [name unknown] (20 June 1733), from Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire: Correspondance [Garnier frères, Paris, 1880], vol. I, letter # 343 (p. 354)

“Go into the London Stock Exchange – a more respectable place than many a court – and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker.”

— Voltaire

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Quote source: Letters on England, letter 6, “On the Presbyterians” as quoted in Trust and Tolerance, Richard H. Dees, Routledge, London and New York, (2004) p. 92, published first in English in 1733.

“If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.”

— Voltaire

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Quote source: Letters on England, letter 6, “On the Presbyterians” Trans. Leonard Tancock (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1980): p. 41, published first in English in 1733.

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“Où est l'amitié est la patrie.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Where there is friendship, there is our natural soil.
 • Letter to Nicolas-Claude Thieriot (1734)

“Tous les genres sont bons, hors le genre ennuyeux.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: All styles are good except the boring kind.
 • L'Enfant prodigue: comédie en vers dissillabes (1736), Preface

“Le superflu, chose très nécessaire.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
  • Poem Le Mondain (1736)

“Le paradis terrestre est où je suis.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Paradise on earth is where I am.
 • Le Mondain (1736)

“Tout homme sensé, tout homme de bien, doit avoir la secte chrétienne en horreur.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.
 • Examen important de milord Bolingbroke (1736): Conclusion

“Aime la vérité, mais pardonne à l'erreur.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Love truth, but pardon error.
 • "Deuxième discours: de la liberté," Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)

“C'est le privilège du vrai génie, et surtout du génie qui ouvre une carrière, de faire impunément de grandes fautes.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: It is the privilege of true genius, and certainly of the genius that opens a new road, to make without punishment great mistakes.
 • "Siècle de Louis XIV," ch. 32 (1751), qtd. in Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation," Criticism of the Kantian philosophy (1818)

“Usez, n’abusez point; le sage ainsi l’ordonne. Je fuis également Épictète et Pétrone. L’abstinence ou l’excès ne fit jamais d’heureux.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Use, do not abuse; as the wise man commands. I flee Epictetus and Petronius alike. Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
 • "Cinquième discours: sur la nature de plaisir," Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)

“Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.
 • "Sixième discours: sur la nature de l'homme," Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738)

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“Ne peut-on pas remonter jusqu’à ces anciens scélérats, fondateurs illustres de la superstition et du fanatisme, qui, les premiers, ont pris le couteau sur l’autel pour faire des victimes de ceux qui refusaient d’etre leurs disciples?”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: May we not return to those scoundrels of old, the illustrious founders of superstition and fanaticism, who first took the knife from the altar to make victims of those who refused to be their disciples?
 • Letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105; as translated by Richard Aldington

“Mais qu’un marchand de chameaux excite une sédition dans sa bourgade; qu’associé à quelques malheureux coracites il leur persuade qu’il s’entretient avec l’ange Gabriel; qu’il se vante d’avoir été ravi au ciel, et d’y avoir reçu une partie de ce livre inintelligible qui fait frémir le sens commun à chaque page; que, pour faire respecter ce livre, il porte dans sa patrie le fer et la flamme; qu’il égorge les pères, qu’il ravisse les filles, qu’il donne aux vaincus le choix de sa religion ou de la mort, c’est assurément ce que nul homme ne peut excuser, à moins qu’il ne soit né Turc, et que la superstition n’étouffe en lui toute lumière naturelle.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: But that a camel-merchant should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel Gabriel; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse, at least if he was not born a Turk, or if superstition has not extinguished all natural light in him.
 • Referring to Muhammad, in a letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105

“Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heureux: Qui sert bien son pays n'a pas besoin d'aïeux.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: The first who was king was a fortunate soldier:
Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
 • Mérope, act I, scene III (1743). Borrowed from Lefranc de Pompignan's "Didon"

“Les habiles tyrans ne sont jamais punis.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: Clever tyrants are never punished.
 • Mérope, act V, scene V (1743)

“Il vaut mieux hasarder de sauver un coupable que de condamner un innocent.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
 • Zadig (1747)

“Qui plume a, guerre a.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: To hold a pen is to be at war.
 • Letter to Jeanne-Grâce Bosc du Bouchet, comtesse d'Argental (4 October 1748)
 • 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 one vast temple consecrated to discord [Qui plume a, guerre a. Ce monde est un vaste temple dédié à la discorde].

“C'est une des superstitions de l'esprit humain d'avoir imaginé que la virginité pouvait être une vertu.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.
 • Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
 • Note: This quotation and the three that follow directly below are from the so-called Leningrad Notebook, also known as Le Sottisier; it is one of several posthumously published notebooks of Voltaire.

“Prier Dieu c'est se flatter qu'avec des paroles on changera toute la nature.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.
 • Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)

“Nous cherchons tous le bonheur, mais sans savoir où, comme les ivrognes qui cherchent leur maison, sachant confusément qu'ils en ont une.”

— Voltaire

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More on this quote: We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.
 • Notebooks (c.1735-c.1750)
 • A variation on this remark can be found in the same notebook: Men who look for happiness are like drunkards who cannot find their house but know that they have one [Les hommes qui cherchent le bonheur sont comme des ivrognes qui ne peuvent trouver leur maison, mais qui savent qu'ils en ont une].

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